Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed,
But now the savage temper was reclaim'd.
Persuasion on his lips had taken place;

For all plead well who plead the cause of grace.
His iron-heart with Scripture he assail'd,
Woo'd him to hear a sermon, and prevail'd.
His faithful bow the mighty preacher drew,
Swift as the lightning-glimpse the arrow flew.
He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around,
To find a worse than he; but none he found.
He felt his sins, and wonder'd he should feel.
Grace made the wound, and grace alone could heal.
Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies!
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day was wash'd with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.
The next his swarthy brethren of the mine
Learn'd by his alter'd speech, the change divine,
Laugh'd when they should have wept, and swore the day
Was nigh when he would swear as fast as they.
"No," said the penitent: "such words shall share
This breath no more; devoted now to prayer.
O! if thou seest, (thine eye the future sees,)
That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these,
Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel,
Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;

Now take me to that Heaven I once defied,

Thy presence, thy embrace!"-He spoke and died!

TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON,

ON HIS RETURN FROM RAMSGATE.

Ост. 1780.

THAT Ocean you have late survey'd,
Those rocks I too have seen;
But I, afflicted and dismay'd,
You tranquil and serene.

You from the flood-controlling steep

Saw stretch'd before

your view,

With conscious joy, the threatening deep,

No longer such to you.

To me, the waves that ceaseless broke
Upon the dangerous coast,
Hoarsely and ominously spoke
Of all my treasure lost.

Your sea of troubles you have past,
And found the peaceful shore;
I, tempest-toss'd, and wreck'd at last,
Come home to port no more.

LOVE ABUSED.

combine

WHAT is there in the vale of life
Half so delightful as a wife,
When friendship, love, and peace
To stamp the marriage bond divine?
The stream of pure and genuine love
Derives its current from above;

And earth a second Eden shows,
Where'er the healing water flows:
But ah, if from the dikes and drains
Of sensual Nature's feverish veins,
Lust, like a lawless headstrong flood,
Impregnated with ooze and mud,
Descending fast on every side
Once mingles with the sacred tide,
Farewell the soul-enlivening scene!
The banks that wore a smiling green,
With rank defilement overspread,
Bewail their flowery beauties dead;
The stream polluted, dark, and dull,
Diffused into a Stygian pool,
Through life's last melancholy years
Is fed with ever-flowing tears,
Complaints supply the zephyr's part,
And sighs that heave a breaking heart.

A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LADY AUSTEN,

DEC. 17, 1781.

DEAR ANNA-between friend and friend,
Prose answers every common end;
Serves, in a plain and homely way,

To express the occurrence of the day;
Our health, the weather, and the news,

What walks we take, what books we choose,
And all the floating thoughts we find
Upon the surface of the mind.

But when a poet takes the pen,
Far more alive than other men,
He feels a gentle tingling come
Down to his finger and his thumb,
Derived from nature's noblest part,
The centre of a glowing heart:
And this is what the world, who knows
No flights above the pitch of prose,
His more sublime vagaries slighting,
Denominates an itch for writing.
No wonder I, who scribble rhyme
To catch the triflers of the time,
And tell them truths divine and clear,

Which, couch'd in prose, they will not hear;
Who labour hard to allure and draw

The loiterers I never saw,

Should feel that itching and that tingling
With all my purpose intermingling,
Το your intrinsic merit true,

When call'd to address myself to you.

Mysterious are His ways, whose power
Brings forth that unexpected hour,
When minds, that never met before,
Shall meet, unite, and part no more:
It is the' allotment of the skies,
The hand of the Supremely Wise,
That guides and governs our affections,
And plans and orders our connexions:
Directs us in our distant road,

And marks the bounds of our abode.
Thus we were settled when you found
Peasants and children all around us,

us,

Not dreaming of so dear a friend,
Deep in the abyss of Silver-End'.
Thus Martha, even against her will,
Perch'd on the top of yonder hill;
And you, though you must needs prefer
The fairer scenes of sweet Sancerre2,
Are come from distant Loire, to choose
A cottage on the banks of Ouse.
This page of Providence quite new,
And now just opening to our view,
Employs our present thoughts and pains
To guess, and spell, what it contains:
But day by day, and year by year,
Will make the dark enigma clear;
And furnish us, perhaps, at last,
Like other scenes already past,
With proof, that we, and our affairs,
Are part of a Jehovah's cares:
For God unfolds, by slow degrees,
The purport of his deep decrees;
Sheds every hour a clearer light
In aid of our defective sight;
And spreads, at length, before the soul
A beautiful and perfect whole,
Which busy man's inventive brain
Toils to anticipate, in vain.

Say, Anna, had you never known

The beauties of a rose full blown,

An obscure part of Olney, adjoining to the residence of Cowper, which faced the market-place.

2 Lady Austen's residence in France.