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Though in a bare and rugged way,
Through devious lonely wilds I stray,
Thy bounty shall my pains beguile;
The barren wilderness shall smile,
With sudden greens and herbage crown'd,
And streams shall murmur all around.

MORALITY IN THE FIELDS.

WITH toilsome steps when I pursue

O'er breaking clods the ploughshare's way,
Lord, teach my mental eye to view
My native dissoluble clay.

And when with seed I strew the earth,
TO THEE all praises let me give;
Whose hand prepar'd me for the birth,
Whose breath inform'd and bade me live.

Pleas'd, I behold the stately stem

Support its bearded honour's load; Thus, Lord, sustain'd by thee I came

To manhood, through youth's dangerous road

Purging from noxious herbs the grain,
Oh! may I learn to purge my mind
From sin, rank weed of deepest stain,
Nor leave one baleful root behind.
When blasts destroy the op'ning ear,

Life, thus replete with various woe,
Warns me to shun, with studious care,
Pride, my most deadly latent foe.
When harvest comes, the yellow crop
Prone to the reaper's sickle yields;
And I beneath death's scythe must drop.
And soon or late forsake these fields.

When future crops, in silent hoards,
Sleep for a while, to service dead;
Thy emblem this, O grave! affords
The path to life, which all must tread.

VOL. I.

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"Now let the spacious world arise!"
Said the Creator Lord:

At once th' obedient earth and skies
Rose at his sov'reign word.

Dark was the deep, the waters lay
Confused, and drowned the land;
He called the light, the new-born day
Attends on his command.

He bids the clouds ascend on high:
The clouds ascend, and bear

A wat'ry treasure to the sky,

And float on softer air.

The liquid element below

Was gather'd by his hand;
The rolling seas together flow,

And leave the solid land.

With herbs and plants, a flow'ry birth,
The naked globe he crown'd,
Ere there was rain to bless the earth,
Or sun to warm the ground.

Then he adorn'd the upper skies:
Behold! the sun appears;

The moon and stars in order rise,
To mark our months and years.

Out of the deep th' Almighty King
Did vital beings frame,

And painted fowls of ev'ry wing,
And fish of ev'ry name.
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He

gave the lion and the worm
At once their wondrous birth;
And grazing beasts of various form
Rose from the teeming earth.

Adam was form'd of equal clay,
The sov'reign of the rest;
Design'd for nobler ends than they,
With God's own image blest.

Thus glorious in the Maker's eye
The young creation stood;
He saw the building from on high,
His word pronounc'd it good.

SONG TO CREATIVE WISDOM. ETERNAL Wisdom! thee we praise,

Thee the creation sings;

With thy loud name, rocks, hills, and seas, And heaven's high palace rings.

Thy hand, how wide it spreads the sky!
How glorious to behold:

Tinged with a blue of heavenly dye,
And starr'd with sparkling gold.

There thou hast bid the globes of light
Their endless circles run:

There, the pale planet rules the night;
The day obeys the sun.

If down I turn my wond'ring eyes
On clouds and storms below,
Those under-régions of the skies

Thy numerous glories show.

The noisy winds stand ready there
Thy orders to obey;

With sounding wings they sweep the air,

To make thy chariot way.

SONG TO CREATIVE WISDOM.

There, like a trumpet loud and strong,
Thy thunder shakes our coast;
While the red lightnings wave along,
The banners of thy host.

On the thin air, without a prop,
Hang fruitful showers around;
At thy command they sink, and drop
Their fatness on the ground.

Thy wondrous power and skill arrays
The earth in cheerful green;
A thousand herbs thy art displays,
A thousand flowers between.

The rolling mountains of the deep
Obey thy strong command:

Thy breath can raise the billows steep,
Or sink them to the sand.

Thy glories blaze all nature round,
And strike the gazing sight,

Through skies, and seas, and solid ground,
With terror and delight.

Infinite strength and equal skill
Shine through thy works abroad,
Our souls with vast amazement fill,
And speak the builder God.

But the mild glories of thy grace

Our softer passions move;

Pity divine in Jesu's face

We see, adore, and love!

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THOMAS PARNELL.

BORN, 1679; DIED, 1717.

A HYMN TO CONTENTMENT. "LOVELY, lasting peace of mind! Sweet delight of human kind! Heav'nly-born, and bred on high, To crown the fav'rites of the sky, With more of happiness below, Than victors in a triumph know! Whither, oh! whither art thou fled, To lay thy meek contented head? What happy region dost thou please, To make the seat of calms and ease? Ambition searches all its sphere Of pomp and state, to meet thee there: Increasing avarice would find Thy presence in its gold enshrin’d; The bold adventurer ploughs his way, Through rocks amidst the foaming sea, To gain thy love; and then perceives Thou wert not in the rocks and waves. The silent heart which grief assails, Treads soft and lonesome o'er the vales, Sees daisies open, rivers run, And seeks (as I have vainly done) Amusing thought; but learns to know That solitude's the nurse of woe.

No real happiness is found

In trailing purple o'er the ground;
Or in a soul exalted high,

To range the circuit of the sky;

Converse with stars above, and know
All nature in its forms below:
The rest it seeks, in seeking dies,

And doubts at last, for knowledge, rise.

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