See countless wheels distinctly tend
By various laws to one great end:
While mighty Alfred's piercing soul
Pervades, and regulates the whole.
Then welcome business, welcome strife,
Welcome the cares, the thorns of life,
The visage wan, the pore-blind sight,
The toil by day, the lamp at night,
The tedious forms, the solemn prate,
The pert dispute, the dull debate,
The drowsy bench, the babbling Hall,
For thee, fair Justice, welcome all!
Thus though my noon of life be past,
Yet let my setting sun, at last,
Find out the still, the rural cell,
Where sage Retirement loves to dwell!
There let me taste the homefelt bliss
Of innocence, and inward peace;
Untainted by the guilty bribe,
Uncursed amid the harpy tribe;
No orphan's cry to wound my ear;
My honour, and my conscience clear;
Thus may I calmly meet my end,
Thus to the grave in peace descend.
SIR JOHN HENRY MOORE, BART.
THIS interesting and promising young man died of a decline, in his twenty-fifth year.
L'AMOUR TIMIDE.
IF in that breast, so good, so pure,
Compassion ever lov'd to dwell,
Pity the sorrows I endure;
The cause I must not, dare not tell.
The grief that on my quiet preys,
That rends my heart, that checks my tongue,
I fear will last me all my days,
But feel it will not last me long.
CEASE to blame my melancholy,
Though with sighs and folded arms
I muse with silence on her charms;
Censure not-I know 'tis folly.
Yet these mournful thoughts possessing,
Such delights I find in grief,
That, could heaven afford relief,
My fond heart would scorn the blessing.
RICHARD JAG O.
BORN 1715.-DIED 1781.
THE Rev. Richard Jago was vicar of Snitterfield, near Stratford on Avon. Shenstone, who knew him at Oxford, where Jago was a sizer, used to visit him privately, it being thought beneath the dignity of a commoner to be intimate with a student of that rank, and continued his friendship for him through life.
LABOUR AND GENIUS; OR, THE MILL-STREAM AND THE CASCADE.
BETWIXT two sloping verdant hills
A current pour'd its careless rills,
Which unambitious crept along,
With weeds and matted grass o'erhung.
Till rural Genius, on a day,
Chancing along its banks to stray,
Remark'd, with penetrating look,
The latent merits of the brook,
Much griev'd to see such talents hid,
And thus the dull by-standers chid.
How blind is man's incurious race
The scope of nature's plans to trace?
How do ye mangle half her charms,
And fright her hourly with alarms?
Disfigure now her swelling mounds,
And now contract her spacious bounds?
Fritter her fairest lawns to alleys,
Bare her green hills, and hide her valleys?
Confine her streams with rule and line,
And counteract her whole design?
Neglecting, where she points the way,
Her easy dictates to obey?
To bring her hidden worth to sight,
And place her charms in fairest light?
He said: and to his fav'rite son
Consign'd the task, and will'd it done.
Damon his counsel wisely weigh'd,
And carefully the scene survey'd.
And, though it seems he said but little,
He took his meaning to a tittle.
And first, his purpose to befriend,
A bank he rais'd at th' upper end:
Compact and close its outward side,
To stay and swell the gath'ring tide:
But on its inner, rough and tall,
A ragged cliff, a rocky wall.
The channel next he op'd to view,
And from its course the rubbish drew.
Enlarg'd it now, and now with line
Oblique pursu'd his fair design.
Preparing here the mazy way,
And there the fall for sportive play;
The precipice abrupt and steep,
The pebbled road, and cavern deep;
The rooty seat, where best to view
The fairy scene, at distance due.
He last invok'd the dryads aid,
And fring'd the borders round with shade.
Tap'stry, by Nature's fingers wove,
No mimic, but a real grove:
Part hiding, part admitting day,
The scene to grace the future play.
Damon perceives, with ravish'd eyes,
The beautiful enchantment rise.
Sees sweetly blended shade and light;
Sees ev'ry part with each unite;
Sees each, as he directs, assume
A livelier dye, or deeper gloom:
So fashion'd by the painter's skill,
New forms the glowing canvas fill:
So to the summer's sun the rose
And jessamin their charms disclose.
Not distant far below, a mill Was built upon a neighb'ring rill: Whose pent-up stream, whene'er let loose, Impell'd a wheel, close at its sluice,
So strongly, that by friction's pow'r, 'Twould grind the firmest grain to flour.
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