Were I ask’d by fair Chloe to say
  How I felt, as the flutt’rer I chid;
I should own, as I drove it away,
  I wish’d to be there in it’s stead.

SONNET

When the rough storm roars round the peasant’s cot,
  And bursting thunders roll their awful din;
While shrieks the frighted night bird o’er the spot,
  Oh! what serenity remains within! 
For there Contentment, Health, and Peace abide,
  And pillow’d age, with calm eye fix’d above;
Labor’s bold son, his blithe and blooming bride,
  And lisping innocence, and filial love. 
To such a scene let proud Ambition turn,
  Whose aching breast conceals it’s secret woe;
Then shall his fireful spirit melt, and mourn
  The mild enjoyments it can never know;
Then shall he feel the littleness of state,
And sigh that Fortune e’er had made him great.

LINES,

WRITTEN ON THE SIXTH OF SEPTEMBER.

Ill-Fated hour! oft as thy annual reign
Leads on th’autumnal tide, my pinion’d joys
Fade with the glories of the fading year;
“Remembrance ’wakes with all her busy train,”
And bids affection heave the heart-drawn sigh
O’er the cold tomb, rich with the spoils of death,
And wet with many a tributary tear!

Eight times has each successive season sway’d
The fruitful sceptre of our milder clime
Since My Loved ****** died! but why, ah! why
Should melancholy cloud my early years? 
Religion spurns earth’s visionary scene,
Philosophy revolts at misery’s chain: 
Just Heaven recall’d it’s own, the pilgrim call’d
From human woes, from sorrow’s rankling worm;
Shall frailty then prevail?

Oh! be it mine
To curb the sigh which bursts o’er Heaven’s decree;
To tread the path of rectitude—­that when
Life’s dying ray shall glimmer in the frame,
That latest breath I may in peace resign,
“Firm in the faith of seeing thee and God.”

SONNET.

TO FAITH.

Hail!  Holy FAITH, on life’s wide ocean tost,
  I see thee sit calm in thy beaten bark;
  As NOAH sat, thron’d in his high-borne ark,
Secure and fearless, while a world was lost! 
In vain, contending storms thy head enzone,
  Thy bosom shrinks not from the bolt that falls: 
  The dreadful shaft plays harmless, nor appals
Thy steadfast eye, fixt on Jehovah’s throne! 
E’en tho’ thou saw’st the mighty fabric nod,
  Of system’d worlds, thou bears’t a sacred charm,
  Grav’d on thy heart, to shelter thee from harm: 
And thus it speaks:—­“Thou art my trust, O GOD! 
And thou canst bid the jarring powers be still,
Each ponderous orb, like me, subservient to thy will!

STANZAS.

Say why is the stern eye averted with scorn,
  Of the stoic, who passes along? 
And why frowns the maid, else as mild as the morn,
  On the victim of falshood and wrong?