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 which 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 the
day

Was nigh, when he would sware as fast as they.

No, (said the penitent,) such words shall share "This breath no more; devoted now to pray'r. "O! if thou see'st (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;

"Now take me to that Heaven I once defied,

Thy presence, thy embrace!"-He spoke and died!

TRANSLATION

OF A

SIMILE IN PARADISE LOST.

[June, 1780.]

So when, from mountain tops, the dusky clouds "Ascending, &c.".

Quales aërii montis de vertice nubes

Cum surgunt, et jam Boreæ tumida ora quiêrunt,
Cælum hilares abdit, spissâ caligine, vultus:
Tum si jucundo tandem sol prodeat ore,
Et croceo montes et pascua lumine tingat,
Gaudent omnia, aves mulcent concentibus agros,
Balatuque ovium colles vallesque resultant.

TRANSLATION

OF

DRYDEN'S EPIGRAM ON MILTON.

Three Poets, in three distant ages born, &c."
[July, 1780.]

TRES tria, sed longè distantia, sæcula vates
Ostentant tribus è gentibus eximios
Græcia sublimem, cum majestate disertum
Roma tulit, felix Anglia utrique parem.
Partubus ex binis Natura exhausta, coacta est,
Tertius ut fieret, consociare duos.

TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON,

ON HIS RETURN FROM RAMSGATE.

[Oct. 1780.]

THAT Ocean you have late surveyed,
Those rocks I too have seen,

But I, afflicted and dismay'd,
You tranquil and serene.

You from the flood-controlling steep
Saw stretch'd before your view,
With conscious joy, the threat'ning deep,
No longer such to you.

To me, the waves that ceaseless broke
Upon the dang'rous coast,
Hoarsely and ominously spoke
Of all my treasure lost.

Your sea of troubles you have past,
And found the peaceful shore;

I, tempest toss'd, and wreck'd at last,
Come home to port no more.

LOVE ABUSED.

WHAT is there in the vale of life
Half so delightful as a wife,

When friendship, love, and peace combine
To stamp the marriage bond divine?
The stream of pure and genuine love
Derives its current from above;
And earth a second Eden shows,
Where'er the healing water flows:
But ah, if from the dykes and drains
Of sensual nature's fev'rish veins,
Lust, like a lawless headstrong flood,
Impregnated with ooze and mud,
Descending fast on every side,
Once mingles with the sacred tide,
Farewell the soul-enliv'ning scene!
The banks that wore a smiling green,
With rank defilement overspread,
Bewail their flow'ry beauties dead.
The stream polluted, dark, and dull,
Diffus'd into a Stygian pool,
Through life's last melancholy years
Is fed with everflowing tears:
Complaints supply the zephyr's part,
And sighs that heave a breaking heart.

A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LADY AUSTEN.

Dec. 17, 1781.

DEAR ANNA-between friend and friend,
Prose answers every common end;

E

Serves, in a plain and homely way,
T'express th' occurrence of the day;
Our health, the weather, and the news;
What walks we take, what books we choose;
And all the floating thoughts we find
Upon the surface of the mind.

But when a poet takes the pen,
Far more alive than other men,
He feels a gentle tingling come
Down to his finger and his thumb.
Deriv'd from nature's noblest part,
The centre of a glowing heart:
And this is what the world, who knows
No flights above the pitch of prose,
His more sublime vagaries slighting,
Denominates an itch for writing.
No wonder I, who scribble rhyme
To catch the triflers of the time,
And tell them truths divine and clear,

Which, couch'd in prose, they will not hear;

Who labour hard to allure and draw

The loiterers I never saw,

Should feel that itching, and that tingling..

With all my purpose intermingling,

To your intrinsic merit true,

When call'd t' address myself to you.

Mysterious are his ways, whose power

Brings forth that unexpected hour.