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Looking on th' earth, with approbation marks
The just man, and divulges him through heaven
To all his angels, who with true applause
Recount his praises: thus he did to Job,

When, to extend his fame through heaven and earth,
As thou to thy reproach may'st well remember,
He ask'd thee, Hast thou seen my servant Job?
Famous he was in heaven, on earth less known;
Where glory is false glory, attributed

To things not glorious, men not worthy of fame
They err who count it glorious to subdue
By conquest far and wide, to overrun

Large countries, and in field great battles win,
Great cities by assault: what do these worthies,
But rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave
Peaceable nations, neighbouring or remote,
Made captive, yet deserving freedom more
Than those their conquerors, who leave behind
Nothing but ruin wheresoe'er they rove,
And all the flourishing works of peace destroy,
Then swell with pride, and must be titled Gods,
Great Benefactors of mankind, Deliverers,
Worshipp'd with temple, priest, and sacrifice;
One is the son of Jove, of Mars the other;
Till conqueror Death discover them scarce men,
Rolling in brutish vices, and deform'd,
Violent or shameful death their due reward.
But if there be in glory aught of good,
It may by means far different be attain'd,
Without ambition, war, or violence;
By deeds of peace, by wisdom eminent,
By patience, temperance: I mention still

Him whom thy wrongs, with saintly patience borne,
Made famous in a land and times obscure;
Who names not now with honour patient Job?
Poor Socrates (who next more memorable?)
By what he taught, and suffer'd for so doing,
For truth's sake suffering death unjust, lives now
Equal in fame to proudest conquerors.
Yet if for fame and glory aught be done,

Aught suffer'd; if young African for fame
His wasted country freed from Punic rage,
The deed becomes unpraised, the man at least,
And loses, though but verbal, his reward.
Shall I seek glory then, as vain men seek,
Oft not deserved? I seek not mine, but His
Who sent me, and thereby witness whence I am.
MILTON.

TO DEATH.

FROM THE GERMAN OF GLUCK.

METHINKS it were no pain to die
On such an eve, when such a sky
O'ercanopies the west;

To gaze my fill on yon calm deep,
And, like an infant, fall asleep
On earth, my mother's breast.

II

There's peace and welcome in yon sea
Of endless blue tranquillity.

These clouds are living things;

I trace their veins of liquid gold,

I see them solemnly unfold

Their soft and fleecy wings.

III.

These be the angels that convey
Us weary children of a day,

Life's tedious nothing o'er,

Where neither passions come, nor woes,
To vex the genius of repose
On Death's majestic shore.

IV.

No darkness there divides the sway
With startling dawn and dazzling day;

And sweet, through the chorus of rapture and love,
Which God in his temple attends,-

With the song of all nature, beneath and above,
The voice of these waters ascends!

The beauty, the music, the bliss of that scene,
With ravishing sympathy stole

Through the stranger's dark bosom, illumined his mien,

And soothed and exalted his soul.

Cold, gloomy forebodings then vanish away,
His terrors to ecstasies turn,

As the vapours of night, at the dawning of day,
With splendour and loveliness burn."

The stranger reposed in the lonely Retreat,
Now smiling at phantoms gone by:

When, lo! a new welcome, in numbers most sweet,
Saluted his ear through his eye;

It came to his eye, but it went to his soul-
Some Muse, as she wander'd that way,
Had dropp'd from her bosom a mystical scroll,
Whose secrets I dare not betray.

Strange tones, we are told, the pale mariner hears,
When the mermaids ascend from their caves,
And sing where the moon, newly-risen, appears
A column of gold on the waves:

And wild notes of wonder the shepherd entrance
Who, dreaming, beholds in the vale,

By torch-light of glow-worms, the fairies that dance
To minstrelsy piped in the gale.

Not less to that stranger mysteriously brought,
With harmony deep and refined,

In language of silence and music of thought,
Those numbers were heard in his mind:

He listen'd and wonder'd, he trembled and wept,
While transport with tenderness vied,

It seem'd as the heart of a seraph were swept
By a spirit that sung at his side.

All ceased in a moment-and nothing was heard,
And nothing was seen through the wood,
But the twittering cry of a fugitive bird,

And the sunset that blazed on the flood:
He rose, for the shadows of evening grew long,
And narrow the glimpses between:

The owlet in ambush was whooping his song,
And the gossamer waved on the green.

Oft pausing, and hearkening, and turning his eye,
He left the sequester'd Retreat;

As the stars in succession awoke through the sky,
And the moon of the harvest shone sweet;
So pure was her lustre, so lovely and bright,
So soft on the landscape it lay,

The shadows appear'd but the slumber of light,
And the night-scene a dream of the day.

He walk'd to the mansion-though silent his tongue,
And his heart with its fullness opprest,

His spirit within him melodiously sung
The feelings that throbb'd in his breast.-

"O ye, who inherit this privileged spot,
All blooming like Eden of yore,
What earth can afford is already your lot,
With the promise of life evermore!
Here, oft as to strangers your table is spread,
May angels sit down at the board!

Here, oft as the poor to your dwelling are led,
Be charity shown to your Lord!

Thus walking with God in your paradise here,
In humble communion of love,

At length may your spirits, when Christ shall appear,
Be caught up to glory above!"

MONTGOMERY.

Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the element!

Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

Once more, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard

Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depths of clouds that veil thy breast-
Thou too again, stupendous mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise,

Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

COLERIDGE.

A SON'S FAREWELL TO HIS MOTHER, AND DEPARTURE FROM HOME.

MOTHER-I leave thy dwelling,
Thy counsel and thy care;
With grief my heart is swelling
No more in them to share;
Nor hear that sweet voice speaking
When hours of joy run high,
Nor meet that mild eye seeking
When sorrow's touch comes nigh.

Mother-I leave thy dwelling,

And the sweet hour of prayer;
With grief my heart is swelling
No more to meet thee there.

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