Pleasant is it to behold
Distant mountains tipp'd with gold,
Sunny landscapes round us spread,
While our path is in the shade.
Welcome, Morpheus, with thy train,
Pleasing phantoms of the brain;
Welcome, Sol's returning ray,
Chirping birds, and dawning day.

Welcome, then, the sacred lore,
Peaceful Wisdom's endless store;
Hours inestimably dear,
Welcome, happiest of the year :
Then the pencil, then the loom;
Welcome, every minic bloom :
Health, and industry, and peace-
Muse, enough-thy labour cease.

ELEGY.

O FORM'D for boundless bliss ! Immortal soul,

Why dost thou prompt the melancholy sigh, While evening shades disclose the glowing pole,

And silver moon-beams tremble o'er the sky?

These glowing stars shall fade, this moon shall fall,

This transitory sky shall melt away; Whilst thou, triumphantly surviving all,

Shalt glad expatiate in eternal day.

Sickens the mind with longings vainly great,

To trace mysterious Wisdom's secret ways; While, chain'd and bound in this ignoble state,

Humbly it breathes sincere, imperfect praise ? ·

Or glows the beating heart with sacred fires,

And longs to mingle in the worlds of love ? Or, foolish trembler, feeds its fond desires

Of earthly good? or dreads life's ills to prove ?

Back does it trace the flight of former years,

The friends lamented, and the pleasures past ? Or, wing'd with forecast vain and impious fears,

Presumptuous to the cloud-hid future haste ?

Hence, far be gone, ye fancy-folded Pains; • Peace, trembling heart; be ev'ry sigh suppress'd : Wisdom supreme, eternal Goodness reigus :

Thus far is sure-to Heaven resign the rest.*

• Thus far was right; the rest belongs to Heaven.

Pope's Prol. to the Sat. ODE.

WHAT art thou, memory of former days,
That dost so subtly touch the feeling heart?

Thou know'st such pleasing sadness to impart,
That dost such thrilling dear ideas raise ?
Each wonted path, each once familiar place,

Each object, that at first but common seem'd,
Beheld again, some sacredness has gain'd,
With fancy's hues inexplicably stain’d,

And by remembrance venerable deem'd.
Nor idle workings these of fancy fond;
Some solemn truth the heaven-sent visions

teach, Stretching our thoughts these bounded scenes

beyond; And this their voice, and this the truth they teach. Time past to man should be an awful theme;

No magic can the fugitive recall;
If idly lost in pleasure's noon-day dream,

Or vainly wasted, passion's wretched thrall :

Know, thou profuse, that portion was thy all ;
That narrow pittance of some scarty years,
Was given thee, O unthinking fool! to buy

The priceless treasures of eternity.
Hence fond Remembrance prompts unbidden tears,

And something sadly solemn mingles still

With every thought of time for ever gone, Distinct from past events of good or ill,

Or view of life's swift changes hastening ou. The sadness hence; but hence the sweetness too;

For well-spent Time soft whispers to the mind

Hopes of a blest eternity behind,
That every happy moment shall renew.
Now, pleasing Fancy, lend thy endless clew,

And through the maze of bliss our pathway guide,

Where bloom unfading joys on every side;
And each gay winding offers to the view,
Here, boundless prospects opening to the sight,
In full celestial glory dazzling bright,
Increasing still, and ever to increase;
There, the soft scenes of innocence and peace;
Through which, in early youth or riper age,

A hand all gracious leads the virtuous few,
That graceful tread on life's important stage ;

But fairer now, and brighter every hue :
For stormy clouds too often intervene,

And throw dark shadows o’er this mortal scene, Blast the fair buds of hope, or snatch from sight

The dear companions of our social way,
Absorb'd at once in death's impervious night.
Lost for a while-but when eternal day
Shall gladsome dawn at once its glorious ray,

Shows the fair scene of happiness complete:

Then friends, companions, lovers joyful meet, " Thence never more to part; and fully blown, The buds of hope, their lasting bloom, display. Then sweet Remembrance wakes without regret,