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ALEXANDER POPE.

BORN, 1688; DIED, 1744.

RESTORATION OF JERUSALEM.

FROM THE MESSIAH.

RISE, Crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy tow'ry head, and lift thine eyes!
See, a long race thy spacious courts adorn,
See, future sons and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend!
See, thy bright altars thron'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabean springs!
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See, heav'n its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day.
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn,
But lost, dissolv'd in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze,
O'erflow thy courts; the Light himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine.
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away,
But fixed his word, his saving power remains,
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns.

A LESSON OF THANKFULNESS.

HEAV'N from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state!
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?

A LESSON OF THANKFULNESS.

Pleas'd to the last he crops the flow'ry food,

And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
O blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,

That each may fill the circle mark'd by heav'n.

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Hope, humbly, then, with trembling pinions soar,
Wait the great teacher, death; and God adore,
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;

Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n

Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, nor Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Go, wiser thou; and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence ;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much :
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone engross not heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge his justice, be the God of God.

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UNIVERSAL BENEFICENCE OF PROVIDENCE. HAS God, thou fool, work'd solely for thy good, Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spreads the flow'ry lawn. Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings? Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat? Loves of his own and raptures swell the note. The bounding steed you pompously bestride, Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain? The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain. Thine the full harvest of the golden year? Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer: The hog that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of the lord of all.

Know, nature's children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch warm'd a bear. While man exclaims, "See all things for my use!" "See man for mine !" replies a pamper'd go os e: And just as short of reason he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all. Grant that the powerful still the weak control; Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole! Nature that tyrant checks; he only knows, And helps another creature's wants and woes. Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings? Or hears the hawk, when Philomela sings? Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods, To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods: For some his interest prompts him to provide, For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride: All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy The extensive blessing of his luxury.

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS BOUL.

That very life his learned hunger craves,
He saves from famine, from the savage saves:
Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast,
And, till he ends the being makes it blest,
Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain,
Than favour'd man by touch ethereal slain;
The creature had his feast of life before,
Thou too must perish when thy feast is o'er.

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.

VITAL spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh, quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying;
Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond nature! cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!

Hark, they whisper-angels say,
"Sister spirit, come away!"
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirit, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul-can this be death?

The world recedes-it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes!—my ears
With sounds seraphic ring!

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O grave, where is thy victory?

O death! where is thy sting?

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JOHN GAY.

BORN, 1688; DIED, 1732.

A THOUGHT ON ETERNITY.

ERE the foundations of the world were laid,
Ere kindling light th' Almighty word obey'd,
Thou wert: and when the subterraneous flame
Shall burst its prison, and devour this frame,
From angry heav'n when the keen lightning flies,
When fervent heat dissolves the melting skies,
Thou still shalt be; still as thou wert before,
And know no change when time shall be no more,
O endless! though divine !-Eternity,
Th' immortal soul shares but a part of thee!
For thou wert present when our life began,
When the warm dust shot up in breathing man.

Ah! what is life? with ill encompass'd round,
Amidst our hopes fate strikes the sudden wound:
To-day the statesman of new honour dreams,
To-morrow death destroys his airy schemes.
Is mouldy treasure in thy chest confined?
Think, all that treasure thou must leave behind;
Thy heir with smiles shall view thy blazon'd hearse,
And all thy hoards with lavish hands disperse.
Should certain fate th' impending blow delay,
Thy mirth will sicken, and thy bloom decay:
Then feeble age will all thy nerves disarm,
No more thy blood its narrow channels warm.
Who then would wish to stretch this narrow span,
To suffer life beyond the date of man?

The virtuous soul pursues a nobler aim, And life regards but as a fleeting dream: She longs to wake, and wishes to get free, To launch from earth into eternity.

For while the boundless theme extends our thought, Ten thousand thousand rolling years are nought.

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