So to the dark-brow'd wood, or sacred mount, While rising ecstasies their bosoms fir'd. Restor❜d creation bright before them rose, The burning deserts smil'd as Eden's plains: One friendly shade the wolf and lambkin chose; The flow'ry mountain sung, Messiah reigns!" Tho' fainter raptures my cold breast inspire, What time the moonshine dimly gleams between." There, where the cross in hoary ruin nods, And weeping yews o'ershade the letter'd stones, While midnight silence wraps these drear abodes, And sooths me wandering o'er my kindred bones. Let kindled Fancy view the glorious morn, When from the bursting graves the just shall rise, All Nature smiling, and, by angels borne, Messiah's cross far blazing o'er the skies! ODE TO WISDOM. [MRS. CARTER.] THE solitary bird of night Thro' the thick shades now wings his flight, Beneath his ivy bow'r. With joy I hear the solemn sound, Fav'rite of Pallas! I attend, And, faithful to thy summons, bend She loves the cool, the silent eve, Where no false shows of life deceive, Here Folly drops each vain disguise, O Pallas! queen of every art 'That glads the sense, or mends the heart,' Blest source of purer joys; In ev'ry form of beauty bright, At thy unspotted shrine I bow: That breathes no wild desires; Not fortune's gem, ambition's plume, Let av'rice, vanity, and pride, To me thy better gifts impart, By studious thought refin'd: For wealth, the smiles of glad content; An empire o'er the mind. When Fortune drops her gay parade, By thee protected, I defy Of ignorance and spite; Alike contemn the leaden fool, And all the pointed ridicule Of undiscerning wit. From envy, hurry, noise, and strife, The dull impertinence of life, In thy retreat I rest, Pursue thee to thy peaceful groves, Where Plato's sacred spirit roves, He bid Ilyssus' tuneful stream Of perfect, fair, and good: Attentive Athens caught the sound, And all her list'ning sons around In awful silence stood. Reclaim'd, her wild licentious youth Confess'd the potent voice of truth, And felt its just controul : The passions ceas'd their loud alarms, And virtue's soft persuasive charms O'er all their senses stole. Thy breath inspires the poet's song, No more to fabled names confin'd, My thoughts direct their flight: Wisdom's thy gift, and all her force From thee deriv'd, unchanging source Of intellectual light! O send her sure, her steady ray Thro' life's perplexing road; soul |