ODE TO ADVERSITY.

Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,

The proud are taught to taste of pain ;
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore ;

What sorrow was, thou badest her know,

And from her own, she learned to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,

And leave us leisure to be good.

Light they disperse, and with them go

The summer friend, the flattering foe;

By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom, in sable garb arrayed,

Immersed in rapturous thought profound,

And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye, that loves the ground,

Still on thy solemn steps attend;

Warm Charity, the general friend,

With Justice to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh gently on thy suppliant's head,
Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Nor circled with the vengeful band,

(As by the impious thou art seen,)

With thundering voice, and threatening mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,

Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.
Thy form benign, oh Goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there
To soften, not to wound my heart.
The generous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive;
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a man.

From AN ODE.

On the Pleasures arising from Vicissitude.
See the wretch that long has tossed
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again;
The meanest floweret of the vale,

The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.

From AN ODE FOR MUSIC.

What is grandeur, what is power?
Heavier toil, superior pain.
What the bright reward we gain?
The grateful memory of the good.
Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,
The bee's collected treasures sweet,
Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still small voice of gratitude.

STRAY COUPLET

Found among Gray's Papers, for a Poem on the Alliance of Education and Government.

When love could teach a monarch to be wise, And gospel-light first dawned from Bullen's eyes.

WILLIAM MASON. [1725-1797

EPITAPH ON MRS. MASON,

In the Cathedral of Bristol.

Take, holy Earth! all that my soul holds dear!
Take that best gift, which Heaven so lately gave....
Does youth, does beauty, read the line?
Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?
Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine;

Ev'n from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.
Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;

Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move;

And if so fair, from vanity as free;

As firm in friendship, and as fond in love.

Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, 'Twas ev'n to thee-yet the dread path once trod, Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,

And bids "the pure in heart behold their God."

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

["Sam Johnson's conversation is to the talk of other men like Titian's painting compared to Hudson," said Hogarth.--Foster's Life of Goldsmith, III. vii.]

From THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.

In full-blown dignity, see Wolsey stand,

Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand;
To him the church, the realm, their powers consign,
Through him the rays of regal bounty shine;
Turned by his nod the stream of honour flows,
His smile alone security bestows;

Still to new heights his restless wishes tower,
Claim leads to claim, and power advances power;
Till conquest unresisted ceased to please,
And rights submitted, left him none to seize.

At length his sovereign frowns-the train of state
Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate.
Where'er he turns, he meets a stranger's eye,
His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly.
With age, with cares, with maladies oppressed,
He seeks the refuge of monastic rest.

Grief aids disease, remembered folly stings,
And his last sighs reproach the faith of kings.

Speak thou whose thoughts at humble peace repine,
Shall Wolsey's wealth with Wolsey's end be thine?
Or liv'st thou now, with safer pride content,
The wisest justice on the banks of Trent? . .
What gave great Villiers to the assassin's knife,
And fixed disease on Harley's closing life?
What murdered Wentworth, and what exiled Hyde,
By kings protected, and to kings allied?
What but their wish indulged in courts to shine,
And power too great to keep, or to resign.

...

When first the college rolls receive his name, The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame; Resistless burns the fever of renown,

Caught from the strong contagion of the gown,

O'er Bodley's dome his future labours spread,
And Bacon's mansion trembles o'er his head.
Are these thy views? Proceed, illustrious youth,
And Virtue guard thee to the throne of Truth!
Yet should thy soul indulge the generous heat
Till captive Science yield her last retreat;
Should reason guide thee with her brightest ray,
And pour on misty doubt resistless day;
Should no false kindness lure to loose delight,
Nor praise relax, nor difficulty fright;
Should tempting Novelty thy cell refrain,
And Sloth effuse her opiate fumes in vain ;
Should Beauty blunt on fops her fatal dart,
Nor claim the triumph of a lettered heart;
Should no disease thy torpid veins invade,
Nor Melancholy's phantoms haunt thy shade,-
Yet hope not life from grief nor danger free,
Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee;
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,
And pause awhile from letters to be wise.

On what foundations stands the warrior's pride,
How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide;
A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,

No dangers fright him, and no labours tire;
O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain,
Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain;
No joys to him pacific sceptres yield,

War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field;
Behold surrounding kings their power combine,
And one capitulate, and one resign;

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain; "Think nothing gained," he cries, "till nought re

main,

On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly,

And all be mine beneath the Polar sky."