Come, let us then the present hour employ; Nor to the faithless future trust our joy; Let us from care the wrinkled forehead smooth, Let us in age revive the sweets of youth, Pour out rich wines, the costly ointments bring, With all the blooming flow'rs that grace the spring; Let the fresh violet and the new-born rose A smiling chaplet for our brows compose. Entwine our templets, ere ye die, ye flow'rs! Short is your date of life, and short is ours. Let's print each hour with pleasure, ere it pass, Leave monuments of joy in every place, That may our revellings and us survive, Shew we once were, and teach our sons to live. Lose not the little portion fate allows, That is man's lot- this all the heaven he knows. Thus they, who from the ways of truth decline, Pervert their reason to confirm their sin ; The mists of sensual lust so cloud their eye, They can't the mysteries of God descry, Or taste the pleasing hope, and heavenly rest, The pious transports of the righteous breast; They know not man for noble views design’d, Nor feel the worth of their immortal mind; On transitory things they fix their bliss, And lose the better life to come for this. When my breast labours with oppressive care, Think not, when all your scanty stores afford } Yet, your kind heav'nly Father bends his eye Observe the rising lily's snowy grace, If, ceaseless, thus the fowls of heaven he feeds, If o'er the fields such lucid robes he spreads; Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say? Is he unwise? or, are ye less than they? ODE ON ÆOLUS'S HARP. THOMSON. ÆTheReaL race, inhabitants of air, Who hymn your God amid the secret grove; Ye unseen beings, to my harp repair, And raise majestic strains, or melt in love. Those tender notes, how kindly they upbraid! With what soft woe they thrill the lover's heart, Sure from the hand of some unhappy maid, Who dy'd of love, these sweet complainings part. But hark! that strain was of a graver tone; On the deep strings his hand some hermit throws; Or he, the sacred bard *; who sat alone, In the drear waste, and wept his people's woes. Such was the song which Zion's children sung, When by Euphrates' stream they made their plaint; And to such sadly solemn notes are strung Angelic harps, to soothe a dying saint. Methinks I hear the full celestial choir, raise; To swell the lofty hymn, from praise to praise. Let me, ye wandring spirits of the wind, Who, as wild fancy prompts you touch the string, Smit with your theme, be in your chorus join'd, For till you cease, my muse forgets to sing. * Jeremiah HASSAN; OR, THE CAMEL-DRIVER. AN ORIENTAL ECLOGUE. COLLINS. Scene, The Desert.-Time, Mid-Day. In silent horror o'er the boundless waste The driver Hassan with his camels past. One cruse of water on his back he bore, And his light scrip contain'd a scanty store; A fan of painted feathers in his hand, To guard his shaded face from scorching sand. The sultry sun had gain'd the middle sky, And not a tree, and not an herb was nigh; The beasts, with pain, their dusty way pursue, Shrill roar'd the winds, and dreary was the view! With desp’rate sorrow wild, th' affrighted man Thrice sigh’d, thrice struck his breast, and thus began: « Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, “ When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!" Ah! little thought I of the blasting wind, The thirst or pinching hunger that I find : |