Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed; But now the savage temper was reclaim'd, Persuasion on his lips had taken place;

7

For all plead well who plead the cause of grace.
His iron heart with scripture he assail'd,
Woo'd him to hear a sermon, and prevail'd.
His faithful bow the mighty preacher drew,
Swift as the lightning-glimpse the arrow flew.
He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around,
To find a worse than he; but none he found.
He felt his sins, and wonder'd he should feel.
Grace made the wound, and grace alone could heal.
Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies!
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day was wash'd with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.

The next, his swarthy brethren of the mine
Learn'd, by his alter'd speech, the change divine!
Laugh'd when they should have wept, and swore

the day

}

Was nigh when he would swear as fast as they.
"No," said the penitent, "such words shall share
This breath no more; devoted now to prayer.
O! if thou seest (thine eye the future sees)
That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these;
Now strike me to the ground on which I kneel,
Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;

Now take me to that heaven I once defied,

Thy presence, thy embrace !"-He spoke, and died!

TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON, ON HIS RETURN FROM RAMSGATE.

THAT Ocean you have late survey'd,

Those rocks I too have seen,

But I, afflicted and dismay'd,

You, tranquil and serene.

You from the flood-controlling steep
Saw stretch'd before your view,
With conscious joy, the threatening deep,
No longer such to you.

To me the waves, that ceaseless broke
Upon the dangerous coast,
Hoarsely and ominously spoke
Of all my treasure lost.

Your sea of troubles you have past,
And found the peaceful shore;

I, tempest-toss'd, and wreck'd at last,
Come home to port no more.

Oct. 1780.

LOVE ABUSED.

WHAT is there in the vale of life
Half so delightful as a wife,

When friendship, love, and peace combine
To stamp the marriage-bond divine?
The stream of pure and genuine love
Derives its current from above;

De Ass-between friend and friend
Prose zawers every common end;
Serves, in a plain and homely way,
To express the occurrence of the day;
Our health, the weather, and the news;
What walks we take, what books we choose;
And all the floating thoughts we find

Upon the surface of the mind.

But when a poet takes the pen, Far more alive than other men, He feels a gentle tingling come Down to his finger and his thumb, Derived from nature's noblest part, The centre of a glowing heart: And this is what the world, who knows No flights above the pitch of prose, His more sublime vagaries slighting, Denominates an itch for writing. No wonder I, who scribble rhyme To catch the triflers of the time, And tell them truths divine and clear, Which, couch'd in prose, they will not hear; Who labour hard to allure and draw

The loiterers I never saw,

Should feel that itching and that tingling,
With all my purpose intermingling,
Το your intrinsic merit true,

When call'd to address myself to you.

Mysterious are His ways whose power

Brings forth that unexpected hour,
When minds, that never met before,
Shall meet, unite, and part no more:
It is the allotment of the skies,
The hand of the Supremely Wise,
That guides and governs our affections,
And plans and orders our connexions:
Directs us in our distant road,

And marks the bounds of our abode.

AM NW US Mening to our view,
Emmys at present thoughts and pains

guess mi siel what it contains:

Sur my by my, uni yer by year,
* make the dark enga clear;
Ani firnist is perhaps, at last,
Like (cher seenes aready past.

MIC TENÉ THEt ve, and our affairs,
Jebra's cares;

Fre Gad minus by sien degrees
The purport of his deep decrees;

Sheds every hour a clearer light
The sad of our defective sight:

And spreads, at length, before the soul,

A bell and perfect whole,

* Az obscure part of Olney, scheining to the residence of Cowper, which faced the market-place.

» Lady Austen's residence in France.