Cottage Poems | Page 4

from care;?If you would true happiness find,
'Tis on Calvary--seek for it there.
WINTER-NIGHT MEDITATIONS.
Rude winter's come, the sky's o'ercast,?The night is cold and loud the blast,?The mingling snow comes driving down,?Fast whitening o'er the flinty ground.?Severe their lots whose crazy sheds?Hang tottering o'er their trembling heads:?Whilst blows through walls and chinky door?The drifting snow across the floor,?Where blinking embers scarcely glow,?And rushlight only serves to show?What well may move the deepest sigh,?And force a tear from pity's eye.?You there may see a meagre pair,?Worn out with labour, grief, and care:?Whose naked babes, in hungry mood,?Complain of cold and cry for food;?Whilst tears bedew the mother's cheek,?And sighs the father's grief bespeak;?For fire or raiment, bed or board,?Their dreary shed cannot afford.
Will no kind hand confer relief,?And wipe away the tear of grief??A little boon it well might spare?Would kindle joy, dispel their care,?Abate the rigour of the night?And warm each heart--achievement bright.?Yea, brighter far than such as grace?The annals of a princely race,?Where kings bestow a large domain?But to receive as much again,?Or e'en corrupt the purest laws,?Or fan the breath of vain applause.
Peace to the man who stoops his head?To enter the most wretched shed:?Who, with his condescending smiles,?Poor diffidence and awe beguiles:?Till all encouraged, soon disclose?The different causes of their woes--?The moving tale dissolves his heart:?He liberally bestows a part?Of God's donation. From above?Approving Heaven, in smiles of love,?Looks on, and through the shining skies?The great Recording Angel flies?The doors of mercy to unfold,?And write the deed in lines of gold;?There, if a fruit of Faith's fair tree,?To shine throughout eternity,?In honour of that Sovereign dread,?Who had no place to lay His head,?Yet opened wide sweet Mercy's door?To all the desolate and poor,?Who, stung with guilt and hard oppressed,?Groaned to be with Him, and at rest.
Now, pent within the city wall,?They throng to theatre and hall,?Where gesture, look, and words conspire,?To stain the mind, the passions fire;?Whence sin-polluted streams abound,?That whelm the country all around.?Ah! Modesty, should you be here,?Close up the eye and stop the ear;?Oppose your fan, nor peep beneath,?And blushing shun their tainted breath.
Here every rake exerts his art?T' ensnare the unsuspecting heart.?The prostitute, with faithless smiles,?Remorseless plays her tricks and wiles.?Her gesture bold and ogling eye,?Obtrusive speech and pert reply,?And brazen front and stubborn tone,?Show all her native virtue's flown.?By her the thoughtless youth is ta'en,?Impoverished, disgraced, or slain:?Through her the marriage vows are broke,?And Hymen proves a galling yoke.?Diseases come, destruction's dealt,?Where'er her poisonous breath is felt;?Whilst she, poor wretch, dies in the flame?That runs through her polluted frame.
Once she was gentle, fair, and kind,?To no seducing schemes inclined,?Would blush to hear a smutty tale,?Nor ever strolled o'er hill or dale,?But lived a sweet domestic maid,?To lend her aged parents aid--?And oft they gazed and oft they smiled?On this their loved and only child:?They thought they might in her be blest,?And she would see them laid at rest.
A blithesome youth of courtly mien?Oft called to see this rural queen:?His oily tongue and wily art?Soon gained Maria's yielding heart.?The aged pair, too, liked the youth,?And thought him naught but love and truth.?The village feast at length is come;?Maria by the youth's undone:?The youth is gone--so is her fame;?And with it all her sense of shame:?And now she practises the art?Which snared her unsuspecting heart;?And vice, with a progressive sway,?More hardened makes her every day.?Averse to good and prone to ill,?And dexterous in seducing skill;?To look, as if her eyes would melt:?T' affect a love she never felt;?To half suppress the rising sigh;?Mechanically to weep and cry;?To vow eternal truth, and then?To break her vow, and vow again;?Her ways are darkness, death, and hell:?Remorse and shame and passions fell,?And short-lived joy, with endless pain,?Pursues her in a gloomy train.
O Britain fair, thou queen of isles!?Nor hostile arms nor hostile wiles?Could ever shake thy solid throne?But for thy sins. Thy sins alone?Can make thee stoop thy royal head,?And lay thee prostrate with the dead.?In vain colossal England mows,?With ponderous strength, the yielding foes;
In vain fair Scotia, by her side,?With courage flushed and Highland pride,?Whirls her keen blade with horrid whistle?And lops off heads like tops of thistle;?In vain brave Erin, famed afar,?The flaming thunderbolt of war,?Profuse of life, through blood does wade,?To lend her sister kingdom aid:?Our conquering thunders vainly roar?Terrific round the Gallic shore;?Profoundest statesmen vainly scheme--?'Tis all a vain, delusive dream,?If treacherously within our breast?We foster sin, the deadly pest.
Where Sin abounds Religion dies,?And Virtue seeks her native skies;?Chaste Conscience hides for very shame,?And Honour's but an empty name.?Then, like a flood, with fearful din,?A gloomy host comes pouring in.?First Bribery, with her golden shield,?Leads smooth Corruption o'er the field;?Dissension wild, with brandished spear,?And Anarchy bring up the rear:?Whilst Care and Sorrow, Grief and Pain?Run howling o'er the bloody plain.
O Thou, whose power resistless fills?The