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An' aft he's preft, an' aft he ca's it guid;

The frugal Wifie, garrulous, will tell,

How 'twas a towmond auld, fin' Lint was

i' the bell.

XII.

The cheerfu' Supper done, wi' ferious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; The Sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ba'-Bible, ance his Father's pride: His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare;

Thofe ftrains that once did fweet in Zion.

glide,

He wales a portion with judicious care;

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And Let us worship GOD!' he fays, with fo

lemn air.

XIII.

XIII.

They chant their artless notes in fimple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the nobleft

aim:

Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rife,

Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name; Or noble Elgin beets the heav'n-ward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame;

The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raife; Nae unifon hae they with our Creator's praife.

XIV.

The priest-like Father reads the facred page, How Abram was the Friend of GoD on high;

Or,

Or, Mofes bad eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny;

Or how the royal Bard did groaning lye Beneath the ftroke of Heaven's avenging

ire;

Or, Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry ;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, feraphic fire;

Or other Holy Seers that tune the facred lyre.

XV.

Perhaps the Chriftian Volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was

fhed;

How He, who bore in Heav'n the fecond

name,

Had not on Earth whereon to lay his

head:

How His first followers and fervants fped;

The

The precepts fage they wrote to many a land: How be, who lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the fun a mighty angel ftand;

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by Heav'n's command.

XVI.

Then kneeling down to HEAVEN'S ETERNAL KING,

The Saint, the Father, and the Husband, prays:

6

Hope fprings exulting on triumphant wing*,'

That thus they all fhall meet in future days: There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to figh, or shed the bitter tear,

* Pope's Windfor Foreft.

Together

Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In fuch fociety, yet ftill more dear;
While circling Time moves round in an eter-

nal sphere.

XVII.

Compar'd with this how poor Religion's pride,

In all the pomp of method, and of art, When men display to congregations wide, Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the beart! The Pow'r, incens'd, the Pageant will desert, The pompous ftrain, the facerdotal ftole; But haply, in some Cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleas'd the language of the

Soul;

And in his Book of Life the inmates poor en

roll.

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