Her eyes emit a haggard glare;

Her mien a savage soul expressed; With grim Medusa's snaky hair;

And all the father stood confessed.

The groves, which once, in green array,
The admiring eye attentive kept,
No more appeared in verdure gay;
And Eden's fading beauties wept.

Pale was the sun, with clouds obscure; Wild Lamentation mourned in vain To cleanse the soul, with guilt impure, And reinstate the golden reign.

Beauty's a flower of early doom,
Exposed to all the intrigues of art;
For when is lost its tender bloom,

The thorn is left, a bleeding heart.

Triumphant Vice to his drear courts

Returns to rule the infernal plains; There Misery with her sire resorts, To forge for man her torturing chains.

But Virtue, to redeem the earth,

In Eden opes his tranquil seats; Asylum safe of injured worth,

Here Happiness with him retreats!

Virtue and Vice, with clashing sway,
The empire of the world divide;
Vice oft deludes the feet astray,

But Virtue is the surest guide.

Vice, in whose form no grace is seen,
Assumes detested Flattery's guise;
Veils in a smile her hideous mien,
And captivates weak mortal eyes.

While Virtue, in each beauty decked,
In spotless purity arrayed,

Our wandering footsteps would direct,
But blinded man disdains his aid.

Severe Experience soon will learn1o
The stubborn bosom to repent;

The opened eyes too late discern,
What they must then in vain lament.

But see a kind deliverer rise!

Her feeling breast Compassion warms, To purge this film from mortal eyes, And strip delusion of its charms.

Behold Self-Knowledge quits the skies! Ithuriel's magick spear she bears;

From her approach pale Error flies,

And all the mind's dark host appears.11

Disrobed of all his borrowed plumes,

Gay Vice no more the eye allures; While Virtue's native lustre blooms,

And with its charms the soul secures.

The wreath of once triumphant Vice
Now withers on his languid head;
No more his guiles the world entice,
For, with his fraud, his charms are fled.

Ye, whose excursive souls pretend

The Almighty's boundless power to scan; Whose thoughts against the heavens contend, Nor stoop to earth to think on man;

Who, like the lion in his cave,

Or eagle on his rocky height,

With swelling pride austerely grave,
Frown modest Virtue from your sight;

Who proudly view with scornful eyes
The tender scenes of social love;
Contemning Friendship's dearest ties;
The imps of self-dependent Jove;

Hear, learned fools: When life shall end,
Like the light cinders of a scroll,

Will stars or spheres from heaven descend;
To comfort your desponding soul?

Virtue alone can smooth the brow

Of haggard Death with smiles of joy;
Persuasive lead the sons of woe
To pleasures, which can never cloy.

Be Virtue then by all caressed!

Virtue the glooms of life will cheer; With eye impartial search thy breast, While Virtue lends a listening ear.

"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto."

TERENCE, Heaut

I am a man, and interested in all the concerns of humanity.

[Written April 13, 1791.]

YE, who enjoy the bliss of social ease,

Who drink the sweets of Freedom's passing breeze, Taught by your fortune, learn, with generous mind, To soothe the woes, and feel for all mankind.

While Pride's imperial sons in splendour vie,
And with a meteor glare delude the eye;
While bold Ambition copes for deathless fame,
That tinsel glitter of a glorious name;

Behold the generous soul, who feels for man,
The great adherent to the Saviour's plan,
In the dark cell of languid woe appear,
And the sad heart with smiling bounty cheer;
Or in the cruel dungeon's dreary shade,
Where stern Oppression fettered millions laid,
Hear his mild voice amid the lurid gloom,
Recall the fleeting spirit from the tomb!

Sweet are the pleasures, that from loye arise; Sweet the warm rapture, when, with eager eyes, And swelling with the gairish hopes of youth, Young genius springs to clasp a long sought truth ;

But more extatick joys, those scenes impart,
When flowing from a warm and grateful heart,
The sweet eulogiums of relieved distress

The generous heart with pleasing transport bless.
Hail, kind Philanthropy, thou friend of earth,
Creation's mildest, fairest, noblest birth!

Bright are thy features, as the blush of even,
And more complacent than the smile of heaven.
Sweet is the musick, which thy voice distils,
As the soft murmurs of the purling rills;
More gladly echoed through Misfortune's ear,
Than the blithe carols of the vernal year.
Benignant parent of the tear and sigh!
Heaven-born Benevolence, whose gracious eye,
By pity fired, the blandest smile bestows,
That cheers this gloomy scene of mortal woes.

When savage Nature her dominion kept, And each mild Virtue in oblivion slept, Then pale eyed Misery and Oppression rose, And plunged mankind adown the abyss of woes. Dire Rage and War around the nations strode, And Havock grimly smiled o'er seas of blood. The dearest ties of love were stained with gore, And Peace and Friendship ruled the world no more.

The sprightly virgin in her tender bloom, Torn from her lover's arms, by cruel doom, With tears of anguish, trickling from her eyes, O'er his dear marble bids the cypress rise.