Of all that sold Eternity for Time,

None bargained on so easy terms with Death.
Illustrious fool! nay, most inhuman wretch!
He sat among his bags, and, with a look
Which hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor
Away unalmsed, and midst abundance died,
Sorest of evils! died of utter want.

EXERCISE XXI.

Anticipations of the Millennium.-CowPER.

The groans of Nature in this nether world,
Which Heaven has heard for ages, have an end.
Foretold by prophets and by poets sung,
Whose fire was kindled at the prophet's lamp,
The time of rest, the promised Sabbath, comes.
Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh
Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course
Over a sinful world; and what remains
Of this tempestuous state of human things,
Is merely as the working of the sea
Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest:

For He whose car the winds are, and the clouds
The dust that wait upon his sultry march,
When sin hath moved him, and his wrath is hot,
Shall visit earth in mercy; shall descend
Propitious in his chariot paved with love;
And what his storms have blasted and defaced
For man's revolt, shall with a smile repair.

Sweet is the harp of prophecy; too sweet
Not to be wronged by a mere mortal touch:
Nor car the wonders it records be sung

To meaner music, and not suffer loss.
But when a poet, or when one like me,
Happy to rove among poetic flowers,

Though poor in skill to rear them, lights at last
On some fair theme, some theme divinely fair,
Such is the impulse and the spur he feels
To give it praise proportioned to its worth,
That not to attempt it, arduous as he deems
The labor, were a task more arduous still.

O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true!

Scenes of accomplished bliss! which who can see,
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel

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His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?

Rivers of gladness water all the Earth,

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And clothe all climes with beauty; the reproach
Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field

Laughs with abundance; and the land, once lean,
Or fertile only in its own disgrace,

Exults to see its thistly curse repealed.

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The various seasons woven into one,

And that one season an eternal spring,

The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence,

For there is none to covet, all are full.
The lion, and the libbard, and the bear,

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Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon
Together, or all gambol in the shade

Of the same grove, and drink one common stream
Antipathies are none. No foe to man

Lurks in the serpent now; the mother sees,

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And smiles to see, her infant's playful hand
Stretched forth to dally with the crested worm,
To stroke his azure neck, or to receive
The lambent nomage of his arrowy tongue.
All creatures worship man, and all mankind

One Lord, one Father. Error has no place:

That creeping pestilence is driven away;

The breath of Heaven has chased it. In the heart

No passion touches a discordant string,

Disease

But all is harmony and love.
Is not; the pure and uncontaminate blood
Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age
One song employs all nations; and all cry,
"Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!"
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy;
Till, nation after nation taught the strain,
Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round.
Behold the measure of the promise filled;
See Salem built, the labor of a God!
Bright as a sun the sacred city shines;
All kingdoms and all princes of the Earth
Flock to that light; the glory of all lands
Flows into her; unbounded is her joy,

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And endless her increase. Thy rams are there,

Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there:

The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind,

And Saba's spicy groves, pay tribute there.
Praise is in all her gates; upon her walls,
And in her streets, and in her spacious courts,
Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there
Kneels with the native of the farthest West;
And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand,
And worships. Her report has travelled forth
Into all lands. From every clime they come
To see thy beauty, and to share thy joy,
O Sion! an assembly such as Earth

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Saw never, such as Heaven stoops down to see.

EXERCISE XXII.

Fame.-POLLOK.

Of all the phantoms fleeting in the mist
Of Time, though meagre all, and ghostly thin,
Most unsubstantial, unessential shade,
Was earthly Fame. She was a voice alone,
And dwelt upon the noisy tongues of men.
She never thought, but gabbled ever on ;
Applauding most what least deserved applause:
The motive, the result, was nought to her:
The deed alone, though dyed in human gore,
And steeped in widows' tears, if it stood out
To prominent display, she talked of much,
And roared around it with a thousand tongues.
As changed the wind her organ, so she changed
Perpetually; and whom she praised to-day,
Vexing his ear with acclamations loud,
To-morrow blamed, and hissed him out of sight.
Such was her nature, and her practice such.
But, oh! her voice was sweet to mortal ears,
And touched so pleasantly the strings of pride
And vanity, which in the heart of man
Were ever strung harmonious to her note,
That many thought, to live without her song
Was rather death than life. To live unknown,
Unnoticed, unrenowned! to die unpraised,
Unepitaphed to go down to the pit,

And moulder into dust among vile worms,

And leave no whispering of a name on earth!

Such thought was cold about the heart, and chilled
The blood. Who could endure it? who could choose,
Without a struggle, to be swept away

From all remembrance, and have part no more
With living men? Philosophy failed here,
And self-approving Pride. Hence it became
The aim of most, and main pursuit, to win

A name, to leave some vestige as they passed,
That following ages might discern they once
Had been on earth, and acted something there.

Many the roads they took, the plans they tried.

The man of science to the shade retired,
And laid his head upon his hand, in mood

Of awful thoughtfulness, and dived, and dived
Again, deeper and deeper still, to sound
The cause remote; resolved, before he died,
To make some grand discovery, by which
He should be known to all posterity.

And in the silent vigils of the night,
When uninspired men reposed, the bard,
Ghastly of countenance, and from his eye
Oft streaming wild unearthly fire, sat up,
And sent imagination forth, and searched

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The far and near, heaven, earth, and gloomy hell,

For fiction new, for thought, unthought before;

And when some curious, rare idea peered

Upon his mind, he dipped his hasty pen,

And by the glimmering lamp, or moonlight beam,

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And ventured whiles to mix the bitter text,
With relish suited to the sinner's taste.

Many the roads they took, the plans they tried,

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