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In thy fair book of life and grace
May I but find my name,
Recorded in some humble place,
Beneath my Lord the Lamb.

1

REMEMBER THY CREATOR.

ECCLESIASTES XII.

CHILDREN, to your Creator, God,
Your early honours pay,
While vanity and youthful blood

Would tempt your thoughts astray.

The memory of his mighty name,
Demands your first regard,

Nor dare indulge a meaner flame,
Till you have loved the Lord.

Be wise, and make his favours sure,
Before the mournful days,

When youth and mirth are known no more,
And life and strength decays.

No more the blessings of a feast
Shall relish on the tongue,

The heavy ear forgets to taste
The pleasure of the song.

Old age, with all her dismal train,
Invades your golden years

With sighs, and groans, and raging pain,
And death, that never spares.

What will ye do when light departs
And leaves your withering eyes,
Without one beam to cheer your hearts,
From the superior skies?

How will you meet God's frowning brow, Or stand before his heat,

While nature's old supporters bow,

Nor bear their tottering weight?

Can you expect your feeble arms
Shall make a strong defence,
When death, with terrible alarms,
Summons the prisoner hence?

The silver bands of nature burst,
And let the building fall;

The flesh goes down to mix with dust,
Its vile original.

Laden with guilt (a heavy load,)
Uncleansed and unforgiven,

The soul returns t' an angry God,
To be shut out from heaven.

A SURVEY OF MAN.

I'm borne aloft, and leave the crowd,
I sail upon a morning cloud,

Skirted with dawning gold:

Mine eyes beneath the opening day
Command the globe with wide survey,
Where ants in busy millions play,

And try and heave the mould.

"Are these the things" (my passion cried,) "That we call men? Are these allied To the fair worlds of light?

They have rased out their Maker's name, Graven on their minds with pointed flame, In strokes divinely bright.

"Wretches! they hate their native skies; If an ethereal thought arise,

Or spark of virtue shine,

With cruel force they damp its plumes,

Choke the young fire with sensual fumes,
With business, lust, or wine.

"Lo! how they throng with panting breath
The broad descending road,

That leads unerring down to death,
Nor miss the dark abode."
Thus while I drop a tear or two
On the wild herd, a noble few
Dare to stray upward, and pursue
The unbeaten way to God.

I meet Myrtillo mounting high,
I know his candid soul afar;
Here Dorylis and Thyrsis fly,

Each like a rising star;

Charin I see, and Fidea there,
I see them help each other's flight,
And bless them as they go:

They soar beyond my labouring sight,
And leave their loads of mortal care,

But not their love, below.

On heaven, their home, they fix their eyes,
The temple of their God:

With morning incense up they rise,
Sublime, and through the lower skies,
Spread their perfumes abroad.

Across the road a seraph flew,

"Mark," (said he,) "that happy pair,
Marriage helps devotion there:

When kindred minds their God pursue,
They break with double vigour through
The dull incumbent air."

Charmed with the pleasure and surprise,

My soul adores and sings

"Blest be the power that springs their flight, That streaks their path with heavenly light, That turns their love to sacrifice,

And joins their zeal for wings."

JAMES THOMSON.

THIS eminent poet was born at Ednam, in Roxburghshire, in the year 1700. He was educated at Jedburgh and Edinburgh, and was intended for the ministry. Poetry, however, led him aside from this path, and in 1725 he came to London, where he soon attracted notice by the publication of his Winter, and was patronized by the Lord Chancellor Talbot, with whose son he travelled afterwards on the Continent. At this nobleman's death, he was patronized by Frederic, Prince of Wales, and afterwards by Mr. Lyttelton. He died in 1748.

As a poet, Thomson possessed powers and perfections peculiarly his own. His Seasons, which is his chief production, furnishes a glowing and interesting description of nature, in language most elegant, most simple, and yet most dignified.

A HYMN ON THE SEASONS.

THESE as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields: the softening air is balm,
And every sense and every heart is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the Summer months,

With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, and hollow whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter, awful Thou! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, Thou bid'st the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined!
Shade unperceived so soft'ning into shade,
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That as they still succeed they ravish still.
But wand'ring oft with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand
That ever busy wheels the silent spheres ;
Works in the secret deep; shoots teeming thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join every living soul
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,

In adoration join: and ardent raise

One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,

Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes.

Oh! talk of Him in solitary glooms,

Where o'er the rock the scarcely waving pine

Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.

And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,

Who shake th' astonished world, lift high to heaven

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