See the sole bless heaven could on all bestow !
Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know ;
Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind,
The bad must miss, the good, untaught, will find:
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through nature, up to nature's God;
Pursues that chain which links the immense design,
Join heaven and earth, and mortal and divine:
Sees that no being any bliss can know,
But touches some above and some below;
Learns from this union of the rising whole,
The first, last, purpose of the human soul;
And knows where faith, law, morals, all began,
All end in love of God and love of man.
For him alone hope leads from goal to goal,
And opens still, and opens on his soul,
Till lengthen'd on to faith, and unconfin'd,
It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind.
Hark! heard ye not that piercing cry,
Which shook the waves and rent the sky?
Even now, even now, on yonder western shores, Weeps pale Despair, and writhing Anguish roars : Even now, in Afric's groves, with hideous yell, Fierce Slavery stalks, and slips the dogs of hell: From vale to vale the gathering cries rebound, And sable nations tremble at the sound!
Ye bands of SENATORS! whose suffrage sways
Britannia's realms, whom either Ind obeys,
Who right the injur'd and reward the brave,
Stretch your strong arm, for ye have power to save!
Thron'd in the vaulted heart, his dread resort,
Inexorable CONSCIENCE holds his court;
With still small voice the plots of guilt alarins,
Bares his mask'd brow, his lifted hand disarms;
But wrapp'd in night, with terrors all his own,
He speaks in thunder when the deed is done.
Hear him, ye Senates; hear this truth sublime,
"He WHO ALLOWS OPPRESSION SHARES the crime.'
No radiant heart, which crested fortune wears,
No gem, that twinkling hangs from beauty's ears,
Nor the blue stars, which night's blue arch adorn,
Nor rising suns, that gild the vernal morn,
Shine with such lustre, as the tear that breaks
For others' wo, down virtue's manly cheeks.
Where my Laura is laid beneath this old tree,
Asleep to the whispers that die on the gale,
Ye wood-nymphs attend, as kind guardians, and see
That no harsh intrusion her slumbers assail.
Swell gently thy murmur, O, soft rolling stream, And gently, ye zephyrs, skim o'er the sweet maid; By rustling your pinions, disturb not her dream, Nor ruffle the bank where my Laura is laid.
May her dreams be of rapture, and through her dear breast,
May pleasure, quick darting, give transports divine;
Such transports as lovers oft feel unexpress'd,
Too poignant for language, for utterance too fine.
O let me for ever, unconscious of change,
Still, sleeping or waking, protect the sweet maid; Still range the same groves that my Laura shall range, And lie on the bank where my Laura is laid.
VARIOUS PASSAGES OF POETRY SELECTED AS EXERCISES TO BE MARKED WITH THE ▲ AND ."., THE PAUSES, AND ALSO TO BE CUT INTO RHYTHMICAL CADENCES OR BARS.
| music | in him | self,
is not mov'd with | concord of | sweet
Or tossing high their | foamy | heads, F
And aught its force with standing fiercely as fiercely as sails:1
|