THE PENSIVE PASTOR.

Here ev'ry drop of honey hides a stings
Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flowers ;
And even the joy that haply some poor heart
Derives from heaven, pure as the fountain is,
Is sullied in the stream, taking a taint
From touch of human lips, at best impure.... COWPER,

How often I wander and muse,
The shores of this surf-circled Isle;
Till the fall of the eventide dews,
The negro returns from his toil:
I dwell on the beautiful scene,
The sunbeams impurple the west,
All nature is

gay

and serene; Then why is my bosom distrest.

The plains are all cover'd with green,
The woodlands with cedars are crown'd;

* Supposed to be written by a Missionary on an Island in the Western Ocean, when in affliction, and labouring under ministerial disappointment.

The ocean is blue and serene;
The gardens with treasures abound:
So pure are the breezes that blow,
The heavens so azure and clear,
I ask, can a feeling of woe
Find aught that's congenial here.

Yes, sorrow can visit the bowers
Of any fair palace on earth;
And wither its delicate flowers,

And drain its sweet sources of mirth:

This life is a wilderness way,

Where roses with brambles entwine;

The path is not ever more gay;

The day does not constantly shine.

Even here in this beautiful Isle,
Where nature's perpetually gay;
And dress'd in her emerald smiles,
"December's as pleasant as May."
Tho' clusters impurple the vine,
Tho' oranges beauty unfold,
The fig-tree its treasures resign;

And the lemon flames vegetive gold.

Yet here the full heart is opprest,
So roses in summer may die,

For anguish can torture the breast:
And sadness bedim the bright eye,
The delicate music within,

The least disappointment may stop;
Remove but a spring or a pin,
The wheels of our happiness drop.

So Jonah rejoic'd in his gourd,
That flourish'd a beautiful shed;
Whose leaves an asylum afford,
To cool and to cover his head:
But a worm in the root could destroy
The flourishing sylvan saloon;

So fickle sublunary joy,

'Tis a lustre akin to the moon.

Our hope is a delicate flower,
Which yields to each furious blast;
And often we loose in an hour;
What promis'd for ages to last:

When the heavens are calm and serene,
We fancy 'twill always be day;
Till the whirlwind and storm intervene,
And sweep the bright prospect away.

But tho' each fair lustre may fade,
Of mortal ephemeras' joys;
And sparkle, then vanish'd in shade
As stars disappear from the skies;
Yet piety sweetly benign,
A star in the east ever glows;
And cheers with a comfort divine,
The bosom bereay'd of repose.

a

To thy lovely refuge I fly,
As the desolate dove to the ark,
For oh! the fierce tempest is high ;
And the night is both dismal and dark :
I rest on the promise divine,
A dawning Aurora appears;

;
A pledge that my Saviour will shine,
And scatter my sorrows and tears.