VIRTUE IN RURAL RETIREMENT ; THE GOOD MAN'S DEATH.

O blest retirement, friend to life's decline, Retreats from care that never must be mine, How blest is he who crowns in shades like these A youth of labor with an age of ease ; Who quits a world where strong temptations try, And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly! For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep ; No surly porter stands in guilty state, To spurn imploring famine from the gate; But on he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, While resignation gently slopes the way ; And, all his prospects brightening to the last, His heaven commences ere the world be past !

VILLAGE SOUNDS AT EVENING.

Sweet was the sound when oft at evening's close Up yonder hill the village murmur rose ; There, as I past with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below : The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young ; The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school ; The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whisp'ring wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind ; These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each pause the nightingale had made.

Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ;
The ruined spend thrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sate by his fire, and talked the night away ;
Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, (won.
Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to
And quite forgot their vices in their woe; (glow,
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

THE CLERGYMAN WITH THE POOR, SICK, AND DYING
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And even his failings leaned to virtue's side ;
But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for all.
And, as a bird cach fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies ;
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed, The reverend champion stood. At his control, Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul ; Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, And his last faltering accents whispered praise. THE VILLAGE PASTOR AT CHIRCH; SYMPATHY AND FAITH.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place ; Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran ; Even children followed with endearing wile, And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest ; To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

THE VILLAGE SCHOOL-HOUSE AND SCHOOLMASTER, Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way With blossomed furze, unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was, and stern to view,I knew him well, and every truant know ; Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face ; Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had ho ; Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned ; Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault ; The village all declared how much he knew ; 'T was certain he could write, and cipher too ;

RCRAL DESOLATION; THE FORLORY WIDOW.

But now the sounds of population fail,
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
No busy steps the grass-grown foot-way tread,
But all the blooming flush of life is fled.
All but yon widowed, solitary thing,
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring ;
She, wretched matron, forced, in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn ;
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain.

THE VILLAGE PARSON; HIS GUESTS. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild ; There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year ; Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed nor wished to change his place; Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour ; Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. His house was known to all the vagrant train, He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain. The long-remembered beggar was his guest,

Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And even the story ran that he could gauge ;
In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill,
For even though vanquished, he could argue still ;
While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one sinall head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame. The very spot
Where many a time he triumphed is forgot.

WEALTH CROWDS OUT POVERTY; SHOW, USE; A FEW, THE MANY. - THE RICH BECOME RICHER, THE POOR POORER.

Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay, 'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land. Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, And shouting Folly hails them from her shore ; Hoards even beyond the miser's wish abound, And rich men flock from all the world around. Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name, That leaves our useful products still the same. Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; Space for his lake, his park’s extended bounds, Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds; The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth Had robbed the neighboring fields of half their His seat, where solitary sports are seen, [growth. Indignant spurns the cottage from the green ; Around the world each needful product flies, For all the luxuries the world supplies. While thus the land, adorned for pleasure all, In barren splendor feebly waits the fall.

MERETRICIOCS LUXURY EXILES THE PEASANTRY.

THE VILLAGE ALE-HOCSE ; ITS &LORIES ; ITS DESOLATION,

Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts in

spired,
Where gray beard mirth and smiling toil retired,
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.
Imagination fondly stoops to trace
The parlor splendors of that festive place ;
The white-washed wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door ;
The chest contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures placed for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose ;
The hearth, except when winter chilled the day,
With aspen boughs, and flowers and fennel gay,
While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show,
Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row.

Vain transitory splendors ! could not all
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall !
Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart;
Thither no more the peasant shall repair,
To sweet oblivion of his daily care ;
No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail ;
No more the sunith his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear ;
The host himself no longer shall be found,
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round ;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

As some fair female, unadorned and plain,
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies,
Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes ;
But when those charms are past, for charms are frail,
When time advances, and when lovers fail,
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
In all the glaring impotence of dress.
Thus fares the land, by luxury betrayed,
In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed,
But verging to decline, its splendors rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise ;
While, scourged by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful peasant leads his humble band ;
And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms - a garden, and a grave.
THE POOR HERDED IN CITIES ; EVILS; CITY CONTRASTS.

Where, then, ah ! where shall poverty reside,
To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
If, to some common's fenceless limits strayed,
He drives his flocks to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is denied.

If to the city sped — what waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share ;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;
To see each joy the sons of pleasure know
Extorted from his fellow-creatures' woe.
Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade ; [play,
Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps dis-
There the black gibbet glooms beside the way.
The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign,
Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous in ;

CHARMS OF SIMPLICITY AND NATURE. Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, These simple blessings of the lowly train, To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art. Spontaneous joys, where Nature has its play, The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway ; Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed, In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ; And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart distrusting asks if this be joy!

Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy! Sure these denote one universal joy!

THE VICTIM OF SEDUCTION.

Are these thy serious thoughts ? — Ah, turn thine Where the poor, houseless, shiv'ring female lies. [eyes She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, Has wept at tales of innocence distrest ; Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ; Now lost to all — her friends, her virtue fled, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, (shower, And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, When idly first, ambitious of the town, She left her wheel and robes of country brown.

His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,
The fond companion of his helpless years,
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
And left a lover's for a father's arms.
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And blest the cot where every pleasure rose ;
And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear ;
Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief
In all the silent manliness of grief.

LUXURY DENOUNCED ; THE RUIN OF NATIONS.
0, luxury ! thou cursed by heaven's decree,
How ill exchanged are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy !
Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigor not their own :
At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe ;
Till sapped their strength, and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.

THE AUBURN VILLAGERS BECOME EXILED EMIGRANTS.

HORRORS OF THEIR WESTERN WILDERNESS.

REFLECTIONS ON EMIGRATION. THE RURAL VIRTTES EXILED.

Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine the loveliest train, Do thy fair tribes participate her pain ? Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, At proud men's doors they ask a little bread !

Ah, no! To distant climes, a dreary scene, Where half the convex world intrudes between, Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. Far different there from all that charmed before, The various terrors of that horrid shore ; Those blazing suns, that dart a downward ray, And fiercely shed intolerable day ; Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, And silent bats in drowsy clusters cling; Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around ; Where at each step the stranger fears to wake The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake ; Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey, And savage men more murderous still than they ; While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies, Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies. Far different these from every former scene, The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green, The breezy covert of the warbling grove, That only sheltered thefts of harmless love.

THE EMIGRANT'S FAREWELL TO HOME. Good heaven ! what sorrows gloomed that parting

day, That called them from their native walks away ; When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last, And took a long farewell, and wished in vain For seats like these beyond the western main ; And, shuddering still to face the distant deep, Returned and wept, and still returned to weep. The good old sire the first prepared to go To new-found worlds, and wept for other's woo ; But for himself, in conscious virtue brave, He only wished for worlds beyond the grave.

Even now the devastation is begun, And half the business of destruction done ; Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, I see the rural virtues leave the land. Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail, That idly waiting flaps with every gale, Downward they move, a melancholy band, Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. Contented toil, and hospitable care, And kind connubial tenderness are there ; And piety with wishes placed above, And steady loyalty, and faithful love. FAREWELL APOSTROPITE TO POETRY. - THE EMPIRE OF TRADE

TRANSITORY ; OF MANLY VIRTUE, ENDURING.
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid !
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade ;
Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame ;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride.
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
Thou found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so ;
Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
Farewell! and, O! where'er thy voice be tried,
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,
Whether where equinoctial fervors glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigors of the inclement clime :
Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain,
Teach erring man to spurn

of gain ;
Teach him that states, of native strength possest,
Though very poor, may still be very blest;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labored mole away ;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.

MILTON'S “ MORNING HYMN”

OF ADAM AND EVE.

Dost scare the world with tempests, settist on fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill'st
With all the waters of the firmament
The swift dark whirlwind, that uproots the woods
And drowns the villages : when, at thy call,
Uprises the great deep and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms
Its cities - who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by ?
0, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad, unchained elements, to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate
In these calm shades thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.

MERRICK'S PSALM EIGHTH.

IMMORTAL King ! through earth's wide frame, How great thy honor, praise, and name ! Whose reign o'er distant worlds extends, Whose glory heaven's vast height transcends. From infants Thou canst strength upraise, And form their lisping tongues to praise : By these the vengeance-breathing foe, Thy mightier terrors taught to know, In mute astonishment shall stand, And bow beneath thy conquering hand. When, rapt in thought, with wakeful eye I view the wonders of the sky, Whose frame thy fingers o'er our head In rich magnificence have spread ; The silent moon, with waxing horn, Along the ethereal region borne ; The stars with vivid lustre crowned, That nightly walk their destined round ; Lord ! what is man, that in thy care His humble lot should find a share ? Or what the son of man, that Thou Thus to his wants thy ear should bow? His rank a while, by thy decree, The angelic tribes beneath them see, Till round him thy imparted rays With unextinguished glory blaze. Subjected to his feet by Thee, To him all nature bows the knee ; The beasts in him their lord behold; The grazing herd, the bleating fold, The savage race, a countless train, That range at large the extended plain ; The fowls, of various wing, that fly O'er the vast desert of the sky; And all the watery tribes, that glide Through paths, to human sight denied. Immortal King ! through earth’s wide fraine, How great thy honor, praise, and name !

These are thy glorious works, Parent of good ! Almighty! thine this universal frame, Thus wondrous fair ; thyself how wondrous then ! Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens To us invisible, or dimly seen In these thy lowest works ; yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine. Speak, ye who best can tell, ye sons of light, Angels ; for ye behold Him, and with

songs
And choral syinphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing ; ye in heaven,
On earth join all ye creatures to extol
Him first, Him last, Ilim midst, and without end.
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn,
Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise Him in thy sphere,
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Thou Sun, of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge Him thy greater, sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon hast gained, and when thou

fall'st.
Moon, that now meet'st the orient sun, now fly’st,
With the fixed stars, fixed in their orb that flies,
And

ye five other wandering fires that move
In mystic dance not without song, resound
His praise, who out of darkness called up light.
Air, and ye Elements, the eldest birth
Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform ; and mix
And nourish all things ; let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye Mists and Exhalations that now rise
From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honor to the world's great Author rise,
Whether to deck with clouds the uncolored sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling still advance his praise.
His praise, ye Winds, that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud ; and wave your tops, ye Pines,
With every Plant in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices, all ye living Souls ; ye Birds,
That, singing, up to heaven's gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep ;
Witness if I be silent, morn or even,
To hill or valley, fountain, or fresh shade,
Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
Hail, universal Lord ! be bounteous still
To give us only good ; and if the night
Have gathered aught of evil, or concealed,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.