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I heard and lo! at once controul'd,
The waves in wild retreat

Back on themselves reluctant roll'd,
And murm'ring left my feet.

Deeps to assembling deeps in vain
Once more the signal gave:
The shores the rushing weight sustain,
And check th' usurping wave.

Convinc'd, in nature's volume wise
The imag'd truth I read;
And sudden from my waking eyes
Th' instructive vision fled.

Then why thus heavy, O my soul!
Say why, distrustful still,

Thy thoughts with vain impatience roll
O'er scenes of future ill?

Let faith suppress each rising fear,
Each anxious doubt exclude:
Thy Maker's will has plac'd thee here,
A Maker wise and good!

He to thy every trial knows
Its just restraint to give,
Attentive to behold thy woes,
And faithful to relieve.

Then why thus heavy, O my soul !
Say why, distrustful still,

Thy thoughts with vain impatience roll
O'er scenes of future ill.

Tho' griefs unnumber'd throng thee round,
Still in thy God confide,

Whose finger marks the seas their bound,
And curbs the headlong tide.

WRITTEN IN THE HOLY BIBLE.

Thou sacred tome, be my unerring guide,
Dove-hearted saints, and prophets eagle-ey'd!
I scorn the moral fop and ethic sage,

But drink in truth from your illumin'd page:
Like Moses' bush each leaf divinely bright!
Where God invests himself in milder light!
Taught by your doctrines we devoutly rise,
Faith points the way, and hope unbars the skies.
You'tune our passions, teach them how to roll,
And sink the body but to raise the soul;
To raise it, bear it, to mysterious day
Nor want an angel to direct the way!

HORACE,

Book the 2d. Ode the 10th.

Receive, dear friend, the truths I teach,
So shalt thou live beyond the reach
Of adverse fortune's power;
Not always tempt the distant deep,
Nor always timorously creep
Along the treacherous shore.

He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between

The little and the great,

Feels not the wants, that pinch the poor,

Nor plagues, that haunt the rich man's door, Imbittering all his state.

The tallest pines feel most the power
Of wintry blasts; the loftiest tower
Comes heaviest to the ground.;

The bolts, that spare the mountain's side,
His cloud-capt eminence divide,

And spread the ruin round.

The well informed philosopher
Rejoices with an wholesome fear,

And hopes, in spite of pain;
If winter bellow from the north,

Soon the sweet springs comes dancing forth,
And nature laughs again.

What if thine heaven be overcast,

The dark appearance will not last ;
Expect a brighter sky.

The God, that strings the silver bow,
Awakes sometimes the muses too,
And lays his arrows by.

If hindrances obstruct thy way,
Thy magnanimity display,

And let thy strength be seen;
But oh! if fortune fill thy sail
With more than a propitious gale,
Take half thy canvass in.

A REFLECTION ON THE FOREGOING

ODE.

And is this all? Can reason do no more
Than bid me shup the deep, and dread the shore?

Sweet moralist ! afloat on life's rough sea,
The christian has an art unknown to thee.
He holds no parley with unmanly fears;
Where duty bids he confidently steers,
Faces a thousand dangers at her call,
And, trusting in his God, surmounts them all.

KNOW YOURSELF.

What am I? how produc'd? and for what end?
Whence drew I being? to what period tend?
Am I th' abandon'd orphan of blind chance,
Dropt by wild atoms in disorder'd dance?
Or from an endless chain of causes wrought,
And of unthinking substance born with thought?
By motion which began without a cause,
Supremely wise, without design or laws?
Am I but what I seem, mere flesh and blood;
A branching channel, with a mazy flood?
The purple stream that thro' my vessels glides,
Dull and unconscious flows, like common tides:
The pipes thro' which the circling juices stray,
Are not that thinking I, no more than they :
This frame compacted with transcendant skill,
Of moving joints obedient to my will,

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