Poems on several occasions

Though neither are o'erstock'd with precious time—
If I can write it, you can read my rhyme:
And find an hour to answer, I suppose,
In verse harmonious, or in humble prose,
What I, when late at Oxford, could not say,
My friends so numerous, and so short my stay.
Let useless questions first aside be thrown,
Which all men may reply to, or that none:
—As, whether doctors doubt the dean will die,
Or F--- still retains his courtesy;
Or I---n dies daily in conceit,
Dies without death, and walks without his feet;
What time the library completes its shell;
What hand revives the discipline of Fell;

133

What house for learning shall rewards prepare,
Which orators and poets justly share,
And see a second Atterbury there?

Say, does your Christian purpose still proceed
To assist, in every shape, the wretch's need?
To free the prisoner from his anxious jail,
When friends forsake him, and relations fail?
Or yet, with nobler charity, conspire
To snatch the guilty from eternal fire?
Has your small squadron firm in trial stood,
Without preciseness, singularly good?
Safe march they on, 'twixt dangerous extremes
Of mad profaneness, and enthusiasts' dreams?
Constant in prayer, while God approves their pains,
His Spirit cheers them, and his blood sustains!
Unmoved by pride or anger, can they fear
The foolish laughter, or the envious fleer?
No wonder wicked men blaspheme their care;
The devil always dreads offensive war.
Where heavenly zeal the sons of night pursues,
Likely to gain, and certain not to lose;
The sleeping conscience wakes by dangers near,
And pours the light in, they so greatly fear.

But, hold! perhaps this dry religious toil
May damp the genius, and the scholar spoil!
Perhaps facetious foes or meddling fools
Shine in the class, and sparkle in the schools;
Your arts excel, your eloquence outgo,
And soar like Virgil, or like Tully flow;

134

Have brightest turns and deepest learning shown,
And proved your wit mistaken, by their own!
If not, the wights should moderately rail,
Whose total merit, summ'd from fair detail,
Is, sauntering, sleep, and smoke, and wine, and ale!

How contraries may meet without design,
And pretty gentlemen and bigots join!
A pert young rake observes, with haughty airs,
That “none can know the world who say their prayers;”
And Rome, in middle ages, used to grant,
The most devout were still most ignorant.
So, when old bloody Noll our ruin wrought,
Was ignorance the best devotion thought.
His crop-hair'd saints all marks of sense deface,
And preach that learning is a foe to grace:
English was spoke in schools, and Latin ceased;
They quite reform'd the language of the beast.

One or two questions more, before I end,
That much concern a brother and a friend.
Does John beyond his strength presume to go,
To his frail carcass literally foe?
Lavish of health, as if in haste to die,
And shorten time to insure eternity?
Does Morgan weakly think his time mis-spent?
Of his best actions can he now repent?
Others, their sins with reason just deplore,
The guilt remaining when the pleasure's o'er:
Shall he for virtue, first, himself upbraid,
Since the foundation of the world was laid?

135

Shall he (what most men to their sins deny)
Show pain for alms, remorse for piety?
Can he the sacred eucharist decline?
What Clement poisons here the bread and wine?
Or does his sad disease possess him whole,
And taint alike the body and the soul?

If to renounce his graces he decree,
O that he could transfer the stroke to me!
Alas! enough what mortal e'er can do
For Him that made him, and redeem'd him too?
Zeal may to man, beyond desert, be show'd;
No super-erogation stands with God.
Does earth grow fairer to his parting eye?
Is heaven less lovely, as it seems more nigh?
O, wondrous preparation this—to die!

University of Virginia Library

A POETICAL EPISTLE TO MY BROTHER CHARLES.