University of Virginia Library

ON THE BIRTH OF JOHN ROGERS DAVIES,

THE AUTHOR'S THIRD SON.

Thou little wond'rous miniature of man,
Form'd by unerring Wisdom's perfect plan;
Thou little stranger, from eternal night
Emerging into life's immortal light;
Thou heir of worlds unknown, thou candidate
For an important everlasting state,
Where this young embryo shall its pow'rs expand,
Enlarging, rip'ning still, and never stand.
This glimm'ring spark of being, just now struck
From nothing by the all-creating Rock,
To immortality shall flame and burn,
When suns and stars to native darkness turn;
Thou shalt the ruins of the worlds survive,
And through the rounds of endless ages live.
Now thou art born into an anxious state
Of dubious trial for thy future fate:
Now thou art lifted in the war of life,
The prize immense, and O! severe the strife.
Another birth awaits thee, when the hour
Arrives that lands thee on th' eternal shore;
(And O! 'tis near, with winged haste 'twill come,
Thy cradle rocks toward the neighb'ring tomb;)
Then shall immortals say, “A son is born,”
While thee as dead mistaken mortals mourn;
From glory then to glory thou shalt rise,
Or sink from deep to deeper miseries;
Ascend perfection's everlasting scale,
Or still descend from gulph to gulph in hell.
Thou embryo-angel, or thou infant fiend,
A being now begun, but ne'er to end,
What boding fears a Father's heart torment,
Trembling and anxious for the grand event,
Lest thy young soul so late by Heav'n bestow'd,
Forget her Father, and forget her God!
Lest, while imprison'd in this house of clay,
To tyrant lusts she fall an helpless prey!
And lest, descending still from bad to worse,
Her immortality should prove her curse!
Maker of souls! avert so dire a doom,
Or snatch her back to native nothing's gloom!

A PARAPHRASE on Jer. XXXI. 18, 19, 20.

Homer's interview of Hector and Andromache, Virgil's elegiac lines upon Marcellus, and Eve's intercessions with Adam for reconciliation in Milton, have justly been the admiration of critics for their passionate tenderness and restless energy. But they all appear to be much less moving and pathetic, than these admirable strains of Jeremiah; an author, whom natural genius and divine inspiration formed to teach all the springs of the passions, and charm us into pleasing melancholy with the harmony of melodious sorrows.

The supreme of Beings represents himself earnestly listening to catch the harmony of penitential groans, so grateful to his ears, from whatever spot of our guilty globe they come. And lo! He hears Ephriam bemoaning himself thus. “Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the lord my God.” Thus he prays, and mercy hears. The converting influence he sought, is granted: And by this, his heart, once so reluctant and unmanageable, is so effectually turned, that he cannot but reflect upon the sudden and surprizing change with delightful wonder—“Surely, says he, after I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed. I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.” The father can no longer hear these mournful strains of the broken hearted penitent: He can no longr keep silence, but agreeably surprizes and interrupts him with the soothing voice of mercy— Who is this that affects my ears with his penitential groans? “Is this my dear son Ephraim? Is this my pleasant child?” So I call him notwithstanding the aspect of wrath a farther but constrained to put on; “for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord.” —Can there be a heart so hard, as not to be dissolved with these melting strains of penitential sorrow? Or can there be despondency so deep and sullen, as not to be animated with these tender strains of paternal goodness?