How many feel, this very moment, death,
And all the sad variety of pain.
* Thought, fond man,
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills,
That one incessant struggle render life,
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,
Vice in his high career would stand appalled,
And heedless rambling impulse learn to think;
The conscious heart of charity would warm,
And her wide wish benevolence dilate.
From the low prayer of want and plaint of woe,
O never, never turn away thine ear!
Forlorn in this bleak wilderness below,
Ah! what were man should heaven refuse to hear! To others do (the law is not severe,)
What to thyself thou wishest to be done;
Forgive thy foes, and love thy parents dear; And friends and native land: nor these alone;
All human weal and woe learn thou to make thine own.
James Beattie. And he whose wakeful tenderness removes Th' obstructing thorn, which wounds the friend he loves, Smooths not anothers rugged path alone,
But scatters roses to adorn his own.-Hannah More.
O God! with sympathetic care,
In others' joys and griefs to share,
Do Thou my heart incline!
Each low, each selfish wish control,
Warm with benevolence my soul,
And make me wholly Thine.
He is the wisest and the happiest man,
Who, in his sphere, does all the good he can,
And with a ready hand and generous heart,
Performs to all the benefactor's part;
He clothes the naked, he the hungry feeds,
Consoles the sorrowing, for the guilty pleads;
His are the joys which pall not in the sense,
And his the high reward of pure benevolence.
THIS turn hath made amends! Thou hast fulfilled Thy words, Creator bounteous and benign,
Giver of all things fair!
To good malignant, to bad men benign.
So shall the world go on,
Different are thy names,
As thy kind hand has founded many cities,
Or dealt benign thy various gifts to men.
Oh, truly good and truly great!
For glorious as he rose, benignly so he set.-Prior.
'Tis amazement more than love,
Which her radiant eyes do move;
If less splendour wait on thine,
Yet they so benignly shine,
I would turn my dazzled sight,
To behold their milder light.
I PROFESS not talking: only this,
Let each man do his best.
Who does the best his circumstance allows,
Does well, acts nobly-angels could no more.
He doeth well who doeth good
To those of his own brotherhood;
He doeth better who doth bless
The stranger in his wretchedness;
Yet best, Oh! best of all doth he,
Who helps a fallen enemy.
*
However small the talent be
By each of us possest,
Oh, let us use it faithfully,
And strive to do the best.
NONE pities him that in the snare,
And warned before, would not beware.
Warned by the sylph-Oh, pious maid beware!
This to disclose is all thy guardian can;
Beware of all, but most beware of man.
Beware of the tempter! be wary and watch!
Lest wrapped in soft slumber thy soul he should catch;
Lest heedless of danger thou fall in the snare
Of folly's enticements, Oh, ever beware!
TAKE any bird, and put it in a cage,
And do thy best and utmost to engage
The bird to love it; give it meat and drink,
And every dainty housewife can bethink;
And keep the cage as cleanly as you may,
And let it be with gilt never so gay;
Yet had this bird by twenty thousand fold,
Rather be in a forest wild and cold,
And feed on worms, and such like wretchedness:
Yea, ever will he tax his whole address,
To get out of the cage when best he may,
His liberty the bird desireth, aye.
As wooed by May's delights I have been borne
To take the kind air of a wistful morn,
Near Tavy's voiceful stream, (to whom I owe
More strains than from my pipe can ever flow,)
Here have I heard a sweet bird never lin [cease]
To chide the river for his clamorous din;
There seemed another in his song to tell
That what the fair stream said he liked well;
And going farther, heard another, too,
All varying still in what the others do;
A little thence a fourth, with little pain,
Conned all their lessons, and then sang again;
So numberless the songsters are that sing
In the sweet groves of the too careless spring,
That I no sooner could the hearing lose
Of one of them, but straight another rose,
And perching deftly on a quaking spray,
Nigh tired himself to make his hearers stay.
Wm. Browne.
It was a very heavenly melody,
Evening and morning to hear the birds sing.
Where thousand birds, all of celestial brood,
To him do sweetly carol day and night;
And with strange notes, of him well understood,
Lull him asleep in angel-like delight.
The birds, great nature's happy commoners,
That haunt in woods, and meads, and flowery gardens,
Rifle the sweets, and taste the choicest fruits;
Yet scorn to ask the lordly owner's leave.
'Tis love creates their melody, and all
This waste of music is the voice of love;
That even to birds, and beasts, the tender arts
Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind
Try every winning way inventive love
Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates
Pour forth their little souls.
Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one
The live-long night: nor these alone whose notes
Nice finger'd art must emulate in vain,
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still repeated circles, screaming loud;
The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.
Cowper.
A light broke in upon my soul-
It was the carol of a bird;
It ceased-and then it came again,
The sweetest song ear ever heard.-Byron.
Is there a cherished bird, (I venture now
To snatch a sprig from Chaucer's reverend brow;)
Is there a brilliant fondling of the cage,
Though sure of plaudits on his costly stage,
Though fed with dainties from the snow-white hand
Of a kind mistress, fairest of the land,
But gladly would escape; and, if need were,
Scatter the colours from the plumes that bear
The emancipated captive through blithe air,
Into strange woods, where he at large may live;
On best or worst which they and nature give?
Wordsworth.
Birds, the free tenants of earth, air, and ocean,
Their forms all symmetry, their motions grace;
In plumage delicate and beautiful,
Thick without burthen, close as fishes' scales,
Or loose as full-blown poppies on the gale;
With wings that seem as they'd a soul within them,
They bear their owners with such sweet enchantment.
J. Montgomery.
Children of song! ye birds that dwell in air,
And stole your notes from angels' lyres, and first
In levee of the morn with eulogy
Ascending, hail the advent of the dawn.
See the enfranchised bird, who wildly springs
With a keen sparkle in his glowing eye,
And a strong effort in his quivering wings
Up to the blue vault of the happy sky.
Sweet birds that fly through the fields of air,
What lessons of wisdom and truth ye bear!
Ye would teach our souls from the earth to rise,
Ye would bid us its grovelling scenes despise;
Ye would tell us that all its pursuits are vain,
That pleasure is toil-ambition is pain;
That its bliss is touched with a poisoning leaven,
Ye would teach us to fix our hopes on heaven.
C. W. Thompson.
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