O'erflowing tides of joy to human hearts, When wants and woes might be our righteous lot, Our God forgetting, by our God forgot! Among the mental pow'rs a question rose, "What most the image of th' Eternal shows?" When thus to Reason (so let Fancy rove) Her great companion spoke immortal Love. "Say, mighty pow'r, how long shall strife prevail, "And with its murmurs load the whisp'ring gale? "Refer the cause to Recollection's shrine, "Who loud proclaims my origin divine, "The cause whence heav'n and earth began to be, "And is not man immortaliz'd by me? "Reason let this most causeless strife subside." Thus Love pronounc'd, and Reason thus reply'd. "Thy birth, coelestial queen! 'tis mine to own, "In thee resplendent is the Godhead shown; "Thy words persuade, my soul enraptur'd feels "Resistless beauty which thy smile reveals." Ardent she spoke, and, kindling at her charms, She clasp'd the blooming goddess in her arms. Infinite Love where'er we turn our eyes Appears: this ev'ry creature's wants supplies; This most is heard in Nature's constant voice, This makes the morn, and this the eve rejoice; This bids the fost'ring rains and dews descend To nourish all, to serve one gen'ral end, The good of man: yet man ungrateful pays But little homage, and but little praise. To him, whose works arry'd with mercy shine, What songs should rise, how constant, how divine! To a Lady on the Death of three Relations. WE trace the pow'r of Death from tomb to tomb, And his are all the ages yet to come. 'Tis his to call the planets from on high, To blacken Phoebus, and dissolve the sky; His too, when all in his dark realms are hurl'd, From its firm base to shake the solid world; His fatal sceptre rules the spacious whole, And trembling nature rocks from pole to pole. Awful he moves, and wide his wings are spread: Behold thy brother number'd with the dead! From bondage freed, the exulting spirit flies Beyond Olympus, and these starry skies. Lost in our woe for thee, blest shade, we mourn In vain; to earth thou never must return. Thy sisters too, fair mourner, feel the dart Of Death, and with fresh torture rend thine heart. Weep not for them, and leave the world behind. As a young plant by hurricanes up torn, So near its parent lies the newly born-- But 'midst the bright ehtereal train behold It shines superior on a throne of gold: Then, mourner, cease; let hope thy tears restrain, Smile on the tomb, and sooth the raging pain. On yon blest regions fix thy longing view, Mindless of sublunary scenes below; Ascend the sacred mount, in thought arise, And seek substantial and immortal joys; Where hope receives, where faith to vision springs, And raptur'd seraphs tune th' immortal strings To strains extatic. Thou the chorus join, And to thy father tune the praise divine. To a Clergyman on the Death of his Lady.