Yet if my thoughts could be confin'd

To follow any leader-mind,

I'd mark thy fteps, and tread the fame :

Dreft in thy notions I'd appear

Not like a foul of mortal frame,
Nor with a vulgar air.

Men live at random and by chance, Bright reason never leads the dance; While in the broad and beaten way

O'er dales and hills from truth we ftray,
To ruin we defcend, to ruin we advance.
Wisdom retires; fhe hates the crowd.
And with a decent fcorn

Aloof the climbs her steepy feat,
Where nor the grave nor giddy feet,
Of the learn'd vulgar or the rude,
Have e'er a paffage worn.

Meer hazard first began the track,
Where custom leads her thousands blind

In willing chains and strong;

There's fcarce one bold, one noble mind,
Dares tread the fatal error back;

But hand in hand ourfelves we bind,

And drag the age along.

Mortals, a favage herd, and loud
As billows on a noify flood

VOL. LVI.

F

In

In rapid order roll:

Example makes the mischief good:
With jocund heel we beat the road,
Unheedful of the goal.

Me let* Ithuriel's friendly wing

Snatch from the crowd, and bear fublime
To wifdom's lofty tower,

Thence to furvey that wretched thing,
Mankind; and in exalted rhyme

Blefs the delivering power.

To the REVEREND MR. JOHN HOWE.

GREAT man, permit the Mufe to climb

And feat her at thy feet,

Bid her attempt a thought fublime,

And confecrate her wit.

I feel, I feel th' attractive force

Of thy fuperior foul:

My chariot flies her upward course,

The wheels divinely roll.

Now let me chide the mean affairs

And mighty toil of men :

How they grow grey in trifling cares,

Or waste the motions of the fpheres

Upon delights as vain!

*The name of an angel in Milton's Paradife Loft.

1704

A puff

A puff of honour fills the mind,

And yellow duft is solid good;

Thus, like the ass of savage kind,

We fnuff the breezes of the wind,
Or fteal the ferpent's food.
Could all the choirs

That charm the poles

But ftrike one doleful found,

'Twould be employ'd to mourn our fouls, Souls that were fram'd of fprightly fires In floods of folly drown'd.

Souls made of glory feek a brutal joy;

How they disclaim their heavenly birth,
Melt their bright fubftance down with drofly earth,
And hate to be refin'd from that impure alloy.

Oft has thy genius rous'd us hence

With elevated fong,

Bid us renounce this world of fenfe,

Bid us divide th' immortal prize

With the feraphic throng:

"Knowledge and love makes fpirits bleft,

Knowledge their food, and love their reft;" But flesh, th' unmanageable beaft,

Refifts the pity of thine eyes,

And music of thy tongue.

Then let the worms of groveling mind
Round the fhort joys of earthly kind
In reftlefs windings roam;

Howe hath an ample orb of foul,

Where fhining worlds of knowledge roll,
Where love, the centre and the pole,
Compleats the heaven at home.

The DISAPPOINTMENT and RELIEF.

VIRTUE, permit my fancy to impose
Upon my better powers:

She cafts fweet fallacies on half our woes,
And gilds the gloomy hours.

How could we bear this tedious round
Of waning moons, and rolling years,

Of flaming hopes, and chilling fears,
If (where no fovereign cure appears)
No opiates could be found.

Love, the most cordial stream that flows,

Is a deceitful good:

Young Doris, who nor guilt nor danger knows,
On the green margin stood,

Pleas'd with the golden bubbles as they rofe,

And with more golden fands her fancy pav'd the flood:
Then fond to be entirely bleft,

And tempted by a faithlefs youth,
As void of goodness as of truth,
She plunges in with heedlefs hafte,

And rears the nether mud:

Dark

Darkness and naufeous dregs arife

O'er thy fair current, love, with large fupplies

Of pain to teaze the heart, and forrow for the eyes,
The golden blifs that charm'd her fight

Is dafh'd, and drown'd, and loft:
A fpark, or glimmering ftreak at moft,

Shines here and there, amidst the night,

Amidst the turbid waves, and gives a faint delight,

Recover'd from the fad furprise,

Doris awakes at last,

Grown by the difappointment wife;
And manages with art th' unlucky caft;
When the lowering frown fhe fpies
On her haughty tyrant's brow,

With humble love the meets his wrathful eyes,
And makes her fovereign beauty bow;
Chearful fhe fmiles upon the grizly form;
So fhines the fetting fun on adverse skies,
And paints a rainbow on the storm.
Anon fhe lets the fullen humour spend,
And with a virtuous book, or friend,
Beguiles th' uneafy hours:
Well-colouring every crofs fhe meets,
With heart ferene fhe fleeps and eats,
She fpreads her board with fancy'd fweets,
And ftrows her bed with flowers,