Come, contemplation! with celestial fire
Warm the young bard, who drives thy heights to gain;
So shall his muse obsequious strike the lyre,
To sound thy bounty in his ardent strain.
Thou lov’st to dwell where solemn, silent night
Divests the mind of folly’s frantic dream;
Where heaven’s grand canopy attracts the sight,
And whispering breezes keep the soul serene.
Ah! how I feel thy welcome power supreme,
Whene’er I wander aged Humber’s shore,
Pensive beneath the moon’s indulgent beam,
At tir’d creation’s universal snore.
If I extend my views to distant skies,
What sure conviction dawns upon my soul?
Borne on a cherub’s plume, it seems to rise,
Seeking its destin’d reign, unconscious of controul.
And not alone amazement finds employ;
Here, pure devotion lends her awful ray,
Without whose light proves lifeless ev’ry joy
That decks the night, or ornaments the day.
“But when I drop mine eye and look on man,”
I see strong outlines of eternal peace;
A Being form’d of intricate, nice plan,
Spurning the confines or of time or place.
Fain would I now retire from busy life,
Sequester’d in some solitary cell,
Alike unknown to envy and to strife,
And bid all noisy scenes a long farewell.
There no ambition should possess my mind,
Or pleasure’s gilded baits my heart betray;
But, to religion perfectly resign’d,
I’d pass my moments usefully away.
How oft, directed by the friendly care,
Silent, I’d range the church yard’s awful gloom,
Musing the fatal stroke I once must share,
A wither’d victim to the cheerless tomb.
“There weigh my dust:” prepare for that grand scene,
When life’s last blaze shall quiver to decay:
Then I’d exult in thee, my sacred theme,
And sure companion thro’ the trackless way.
E’en now with secret rapture I survey,
When my freed soul shall break her chain, and rise
Up to the regions of eternal day,
From finite being to its native skies:
With thee review with perspicacious eye,
The long, long chain of Providence design;
Conceive the attributes of deity,
And hymn his praise ineffably divine.
But cease my song! I hear the muse complain,
How she has strove, and still may strive in vain,
To tell the heart-felt pleasures of thy reign.
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+Epigram on a false mistress.+
My heart still hovering round about you,
I thought I could not live WITHOUT you;
Now we have been two months asunder,
How I liv’d WITH you--is the wonder!
NEW-YORK: _+Printed by THOMAS BURLING, No. 115, Cherry-street+--where
Subscriptions for this +Magazine+ (at 6s. per quarter) will be
gratefully received--And at No. 33, +Oliver-Street+._
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_UTILE DULCI._
THE NEW-YORK WEEKLY MAGAZINE;
or, Miscellaneous Repository.
+Vol. II.+] +Wednesday, January 11, 1797.+ [+No. 80.+
_For the +New-York Weekly Magazine+._
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