ALL are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That changed through all, and yet in all the same;
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent;
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
THE MILLENIUM.
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,
Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a plough-share end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun ;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
And the same hand that sowed, shall reap the field.
The swain in barren deserts with surprise
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys, once perplexed with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn:
To leafless shrubs the flowery palms succeed,
And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.
The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,
And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead:
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.
Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn;
See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend!
See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings,
And heaped with products of Sabæan springs !
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See Heaven its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising Sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine
Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away!
But fixed his word, his saving power remains;
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!
THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.
VITAL spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying;
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond nature! cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.
Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away.
What is this absorbs me quite!
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul! can this be death?
The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?
O Death! where is thy sting?
SEE how the world its veterans rewards
A youth of frolics, an old age of cards;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,
Young without lovers, old without a friend;
A fop their passion, but their prize a sot,
Alive ridiculous, and dead forgot!
Ah! friend! to dazzle let the vain design;
To raise the thought and touch the heart be thine! That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the ring Flaunts and goes down an unregarded thing.
So when the sun's broad beam has tired the sight, All mild ascends the moon's more sober light, Serene in virgin modesty she shines,
And unobserved the glaring orb declines.
Oh! blessed with temper, whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day; She who can love a sister's charms, or hear Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear; She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humour most when she obeys; Let fops or fortune fly which way they will, Disdains all loss of tickets or codille; Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all, And mistress of herself though china fall.
And yet, believe me, good as well as ill, Woman's at best a contradiction still. Heaven, when it strives to polish all it can, Its last best work, but forms a softer man;
Picks from each sex, to make the favourite blessed.
Your love of pleasure, our desire of rest;
Blends, in exception to all general rules,
Your taste of follies with our scorn of fools;
Reserve with frankness, art with truth allied,
Courage with softness, modesty with pride;
Fixed principles, with fancy, ever new,
Shakes all together, and produces-you.
Be this a woman's fame; with this unblessed,
Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest.
This Phoebus promised (I forget the year)
When those blue eyes first opened on the sphere;
Ascendant Phoebus watched that hour with care,
Averted half your parent's simple prayer,
And gave you beauty, but denied the pelf
That buys your sex a tyrant o'er itself.
The generous god who wit and gold refines,
And ripens spirits as he ripens mines,
Kept dross for duchesses; the world shall know it, To you gave sense, good humour, and a poet.
ERE the foundations of the world were laid,
Ere kindling light th' Almighty word obeyed,
Thou wert; and when the subterraneous flame
Shall burst its prison, and devour this frame,
From angry heaven when the keen lightning flies,
When fervent heat dissolves the melting skies,
Thou still shalt be; still as thou wert before,
And know no change, when time shall be no more.
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