MEDITATION IN A GROVE.

WATTS.

SWEET Muse, descend and bless the shade,
And bless the ev'ning grove;

Bus'ness and noise and day are fled,
And ev'ry care but love.

But hence, ye wanton young and fair,
Mine is a purer flame;

No Phillis shall infect the air

With her unhallow'd name.

JESUS has all my pow'rs possest,
My hopes, my fears, my joys:
He, the dear Sov'reign of my breast,
Shall still command my voice.

Some of the fairest choirs above
Shall flock around my song
With joy, to hear the name they love,
Sound from a mortal tongue.

His charms shall make my numbers flow,
And hold the falling floods,

While silence sits on ev'ry bough,

And bends the list'ning woods.

I'll carve our passion on the bark,
And ev'ry wounded tree
Shall drop and bear some mystic mark
That JESUS dy'd for me.

The swains shall wonder when they read
Inscrib'd on all the grove,

That Heav'n itself came down, and bled
To win a mortal's love.

THE

HERO'S SCHOOL OF MORALITY.

WATTS.

THERON among his travels found
A broken statue on the ground;
And searching onward as he went,
He trac'd a ruin'd monument.
Mould, moss, and shades, had overgrown
The sculpture of the crumbling stone,

Yet ere he pass'd, with much ado
He guess'd and spell'd out, Sci-pi-o.

" Enough," he cry'd; "I'll drudge no more,

" In turning the dull Stoics o'er:

"Let pedants waste their hours of ease

" To sweat all night at Socrates ;

" And feed their boys with notes and rules,
"Those tedious Recipes of Schools
"To cure ambition: I can learn

"With greater ease the great concern
" Of mortals; how we may despise
"All the gay things below the skies.

"Methinks a mould'ring pyramid "Says all that the old sages said: "For me, these shatter'd tombs contain "More morals than the Vatican. "The dust of heroes cast abroad, " And kick'd and trampled in the road, "The relics of a lofty mind, "That lately wars and crowns design'd, "Tost for a jest from wind to wind, " Bid me be humble, and forbear "Tall monuments of fame to rear, " They are but castles in the air.

"The tow'ring height and frightful falls, "The ruin'd heaps and funerals

"Of smoking kingdoms and their kings, "Tell me a thousand mournful things

" In melancholy silence.

66

-He

"That living could not bear to see

"An equal, now lies torn and dead,

" Here his pale trunk, and there his head;
"Great Pompey! while I meditate
"With solemn horror thy sad fate,

66

Thy carcass scatter'd on the shore "Without a name, instructs me more " Than my whole library before.

"Lie still, my Plutarch, then, and sleep,

" And my good Seneca may keep
" Your volumes clos'd for ever too,

" I have no further use for you:
" For when I feel my virtue fail,
" And my ambitious thoughts prevail;
"I'll take a turn among the tombs,
" And see whereto all glory comes.
"There the vile foot of ev'ry slave,
"Insults a Charles or a Gustave:

Beggars with awful ashes sport, "And tread the Cæsars in the dirt."

}

TRUE RICHES.

WATTS.

I AM not concern'd to know,

What to-morrow fate will do:
'Tis enough that I can say
I've possest myself to-day:
Then if haply midnight death
Seize my flesh and stop my breath,
Yet to-morrow I shall be
Heir to the best part of me.

Glitt'ring stones and golden things, Wealth and honours that have wings, Ever flutt'ring to be gone, I could never call my own: Riches that the world bestows, She can take and I can lose; But the treasures that are mine, Lie afar beyond her line : When I view my spacious soul, And survey myself awhole, And enjoy myself alone, I'm a kingdom of my own.

I've a mighty part within That the world hath never seen,