THE Lord my pasture shall prepare,
And feed me with a shepherd's care!
His presence shall my wants supply
And guard me with a watchful eye;
My noon-day walks He shall attend,
And all my midnight hours defend.
When in the sultry glebe I faint,
Or on the thirsty mountains pant,
To fertile vales and dewy meads,
My weary wand'ring steps He leads,
Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow.
Though in the paths of death I tread
With gloomy horrors overspread,
My steadfast heart shall fear no ill;
For thou, O Lord, art with me still:
Thy friendly crook shall give me aid,
And guide me through the dreadful shade.
Though in a bare and rugged way,
Through devious lonely wilds I stray,
Thy bounty shall my pains beguile;
The barren wilderness shall smile,
With sudden greens and herbage crown'd,
And streams shall murmur all around,
DR. ISAAC WATTS.
BORN, 1674; DIED, 1748.
Principal Works. - Logic, Improvement of the Mind, Essays, Psalms and Hymns, Divine Songs for Children.
THE ANT.-INDUSTRY.
THESE emmets, how little they are in our eyes!
We tread them to dust, and a troop of them dies
Without our regard or concern:
Yet as wise as we are, if sent to their school,
There's many a sluggard and many a fool
Some lessons of wisdom might learn.
They don't wear their time out in sleeping or play,
But gather up corn in a sunshiny day,
And for winter they lay up their stores;
They manage their work in such regular forms,
One would think they foresaw all the frosts and the storms,
And so brought their food within doors.
But I have less sense than a poor creeping ant,
If I take not due care for the things I shall want,
Nor provide against dangers in time;
When death and old age shall stare in my face,
What a wretch shall I be in the end of my days,
If I trifle away all their prime!
Now, now while my strength and my youth are in bloom,
Let me think what shall save me when sickness shall come,
And pray that my sins be forgiven.
Let me read in good books, and believe and obey,
That when death turns me out of this cottage of clay,
I may dwell in a palace in heaven.
DR. EDWARD YOUNG.
BORN, 1681; DIED, 1657.
Principal Works-Sermons, Night Thoughts, Poems.
PROCRASTINATION.
BE wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer:
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.
All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that through every stage. When young, indeed,
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.
And why? because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal, but themselves;
Themselves, when some alarming shock of Fate
Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where past the shaft no trace is found,
As from the wing no scar the sky retains,
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thoughts of death.
ALEXANDER POPE.
BORN, 1688; DIED, 1744.
Principal Works-Ode to St. Cecilia's Day, Essay on Criticism,
Messiah, Translation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Essay on
Man, Epistles, Satires, and Moral Essays.
A LESSON OF THANKFULNESS.
HOPE springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutor❜d mind
Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, nor Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Go, wiser thou; and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence ;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone engross not Heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge his justice, be the God of God.
Principal Works.-The Seasons, Castle of Indolence,
Rule Britannia.
HYMN ON THE SEASONS.
THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
every sense and every heart is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the Summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve
By brooks and groves in hollow-whispering gales,
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep-felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
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