Wise as he was, and Heav'n pronounc'd him so,
My suff'rings would have laid that wisdom low.
Could I forget my country, thee and all,
And ev❜n th' offence to which I owe my fall,
Yet fear alone would freeze the poet's vein,
While hostile troops swarm o'er the dreary plain.
Add that the fatal rust of long disuse
Unfits me for the service of the Muse.
Thistles and weeds are all we can expect
From the best soil impov'rish'd by neglect;
Unexercis'd and to his stall confin'd,
The fleetest racer would be left behind;
The best built bark that cleaves the wat'ry way,
Laid useless by, would moulder and decay-
No hope remains that time shall me restore,
Mean as I was, to what I was before.
Think how a series of desponding cares
Benumbs the genius, and its force impairs.
How oft, as now, on this devoted sheet,
My verse constrain'd to move with measur'd feet,
Reluctant and laborious limps along,
And proves itself a wretched exile's song.
What is it tunes the most melodious lays?
"Tis emulation and the thirst of praise,
A noble thirst, and not unknown to me,
While smoothly wafted on a calmer sea.
But can a wretch like Ovid pant for fame,
No, rather let the world forget my name.
Is it because that world approv'd my strain,
You prompt me to the same pursuit again?
No, let the Nine th' ungrateful truth excuse,
I charge my hopeless ruin on the Muse,
And, like Perillus, meet my just desert,
The victim of my own pernicious art.
Fool that I was to be so warn'd in vain,
And shipwreck'd once to tempt the deep again.
Ill fares the bard in this unletter'd land,
None to consult, and none to understand.
The purest verse has no admirers here,
Their own rude language only suits their ear.
Rude as it is, at length familiar grown,
I learn it, and almost unlearn my own-
Yet to say truth, ev'n here the Muse disdains
Confinement, and attempts her former strains,
But finds the strong desire is not the pow'r,
And what her taste condemns, the flames devour.
A part, perhaps, like this, escapes the doom,
And tho' unworthy finds a friend at Rome,
But oh the cruel art, that could undo
It's vot'ry thus, would that could perish too!
WHICH HAPPENED IN JANUARY, 1779.
WHERE Humber pours his rich commercial
There dwelt a wretch, who breath'd but to blas
In subterraneous caves his life he led,
Black as the mine, in which he wrought for bread. When on a day, emerging from the deep,
A sabbath-day, (such sabbaths thousands keep!) of his weekly toil he bore
To buy a cock-whose blood might win him more; As if the noblest of the feather'd kind
Were but for battle and for death design'd;
As if the consecrated hours were meant
For sport, to minds on cruelty intent;
It chanc'd, (such chances Providence obey)
He met a fellow-lab'rer on the way,
Whose heart the same desires had once inflam'd;
But now the savage temper was reclaim'd.
Persuasion on his lips had taken place;
For all plead well who plead the cause of grace.
His iron-heart with Scripture he assail'd,
Woo'd him to hear a sermon, and prevail'd.
His faithful bow the mighty preacher drew,
Swift, as the light'ning-glimpse, the arrow flew.
He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around,
To find a worse than he; but none he found.
He felt his sins, and wonder'd he should feel.
Grace made the wound, and grace alone could
heal.
Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies!
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day was wash'd with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.
The next, his swarthy brethren of the mine
Learn'd, by his alter'd speech-the change divine!
Laugh'd when they should have wept, and swore
Was nigh, when he would swear as fast as they. "No (said the penitent): such words shall share "This breath no more; devoted now to pray'r. "O! if thou seest, (thine eye the future sees) "That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these; "Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel, "Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;
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