To build our altar, confident and bold,
And say as stern Elijah said of old,
The strife now stands upon a fair award,

If Israel's Lord be God, then serve the Lord:

If he be silent, faith is all a whim,
Then Baal is the God, and worship him.

Digression is so much in modern use,
Thought is so rare, and fancy so profuse,
Some never seem so wide of their intent,
As when returning to the theme they meant;
As mendicants, whose business is to roam,
Make ev'ry parish but their own their home.
Though such continual zig-zags in a book,
Such drunken reelings have an awkward look,
And I had rather creep to what is true,
Than rove and stagger with no mark in view;
Yet to consult a little, seem'd no crime,
The freakish humour of the present time:
But now to gather up what seems dispers'd,
And touch the subject I design'd at first,
May prove, though much beside the rules of art,
Best for the public, and my wisest part.
And first let no man charge me, that I mean
To close in sable ev'ry social scene,
And give good company a face severe,
As if they met around a father's bier ;
For tell some men, that pleasure all their bent,
And laughter all their work, is life mis-spent,
Their wisdom bursts into this sage reply,
“Then mirth is sin, and we should always cry."
To find the medium asks some share of wit,
And therefore 't is a mark fools never hit:
But though life's valley be a vale of tears,
A brighter scene beyond that vale appears,
Whose glory with a light, that never fades,
Shoots between scatter'd rocks and op'ning shades,
And, while it shows the land the soul desires,
The language of the land she seeks inspires.
Thus touch'd, the tongue receives a sacred cure
Of all that was absurd, profane, impure;
Held within modest bounds, the tide of speech
Pursues the course, that Truth and Nature teach;
No longer labours merely to produce
The pomp of sound, or tinkle without use:
Where'er it winds, the salutary stream,
Sprightly and fresh, enriches ev'ry theme,
While all the happy man possess'd before,
The gift of Nature, or the classic store,
Is made subservient to the grand design,
For which Heav'n form'd the faculty divine.
So should an idiot, while at large he strays,
Find the sweet lyre, on which an artist plays,
With rash and awkward force the chord he shakes,
And grins with wonder at the jar he makes;
But let the wise and well-instructed hand
Once take the shell beneath his just command,
In gentle sounds it seems as it complain'd
Of the rude injuries it late sustain'd,
Till tun'd at length to some immortal song,

It sounds Jehovah's name, and pours his praise along.

VERSES

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER SELKIRK, DURING HIS SOLITARY ABODE IN THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ.

I AM monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute; From the centre all round to the sea,

I am lord of the fowl and the brute. O Solitude! where are the charms,

That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place.

I am out of humanity's reach,

I must finish my journey alone,
Never hear the sweet music of speech,
I start at the sound of my own.
The beasts, that roam over the plain,

My form with indifference see;
They are so unacquainted with man,
Their tameness is shocking to me.

Society, friendship, and love,
Divinely bestow'd upon man,
O, had I the wings of a dove,

How soon would I taste you again!
My sorrows I then might assuage

In the ways of religion and truth, Might learn from the wisdom of age,

And be cheer'd by the sallies of youth.

Religion! what treasure untold

Resides in that heavenly word! More precious than silver and gold,

Or all that this Earth can afford. But the sound of the church-going bell These valleys and rocks never heard, Never sigh'd at the sound of a knell,

Or smil'd when a sabbath appear'd.

Ye winds, that have made me your sport, Convey to this desolate shore

Some cordial endearing report

Of a land, I shall visit no more.

My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,

Though a friend I am never to see.

How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compar'd with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind,

And the swift-winged arrows of light. When I think of my own native land, In a moment I seem to be there; But alas! recollection at hand

Soon hurries me back to despair.

But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest, The beast is laid down in his lair; Even here is a season of rest,

And I to my cabin repair. There's mercy in every place,

And mercy, encouraging thought! Gives even affliction a grace, And reconciles man to his lot.

The youth did ride, and soon did meet

John coming back amain;

Whom in a trice he tried to stop,
By catching at his rein;

But not performing what he meant,
And gladly would have done,
The frighted steed he frighted more,
And made him faster run.

Away went Gilpin, and away

Went postboy at his heels,

The postboy's horse right glad to miss
The lumb'ring of the wheels.

Six gentlemen upon the road,
Thus seeing Gilpin fly,
With postboy scamp'ring in the rear,
They rais'd the hue and cry: -

"Stop thief! stop thief! —a highwayman!" Not one of them was mute;

And all and each that pass'd that way
Did join in the pursuit.

And now the turnpike gates again
Flew open in short space;
The toll-men thinking as before,
That Gilpin rode a race.

And so he did, and won it too,

For he got first to town; Nor stopp'd till where he had got up He did again get down.

Now let us sing, Long live the King, And Gilpin long live he;

And, when he next doth ride abroad, May I be there to see!

Dreading a negative, and overaw'd Lest he should trespass, begg'd to go abroad. "Go, fellow!-whither?"-turning short about"Nay. Stay at home-you 're always going out." ""T is but a step, sir, just at the street's end." “For what?”—“An please you, sir, to see a friend.” "A friend!" Horatio cried, and seem'd to start"Yea marry shalt thou, and with all my heart. — And fetch my cloak; for, though the night be raw, I'll see him too- the first I ever saw."

I knew the man, and knew his nature mild,
And was his plaything often when a child;
But somewhat at that moment pinch'd him close,
Else he was seldom bitter or morose.

Perhaps his confidence just then betray'd,
His grief might prompt him with the speech he made;
Perhaps 't was mere good-humour gave it birth,
The harmless play of pleasantry and mirth.
Howe'er it was, his language in my mind,
Bespoke at least a man that knew mankind.

But not to moralize too much, and strain,
To prove an evil, of which all complain,
(I hate long arguments verbosely spun,)
One story more, dear Hill, and I have done.
Once on a time an emp'ror, a wise man,
No matter where, in China, or Japan,
Decreed, that whosoever should offend
Against the well-known duties of a friend,
Convicted once should ever after wear

But half a coat, and show his bosom bare.
The punishment importing this, no doubt,
That all was naught within, and all found out.
O happy Britain! we have not to fear
Such hard and arbitrary measure here;
Else, could a law, like that which I relate,
Once have the sanction of our triple state,
Some few, that I have known in days of old,
Would run most dreadful risk of catching cold;
While you, my friend, whatever wind should blow,
Might traverse England safely to and fro,
An honest man, close-button'd to the chin,
Broad cloth without, and a warm heart within.

AN EPISTLE

TO

JOSEPH HILL, Esq.

DEAR JOSEPH-five-and-twenty years ago—
Alas, how time escapes! - 't is even so-
With frequent intercourse, and always sweet,
And always friendly, we were wont to cheat
A tedious hour-and now we never meet!
As some grave gentleman in Terence says,
('T was therefore much the same in ancient days,)
Good lack, we know not what to-morrow brings -
Strange fluctuation of all human things!
True. Changes will befall, and friends may part,
But distance only cannot change the heart:
And, were I call'd to prove th' assertion true,
One proof should serve a reference to you.
Whence comes it then, that in the wane of life,
Though nothing have occurr'd to kindle strife,
We find the friends we fancied we had won,
Though num'rous once, reduc'd to few or none?
Can gold grow worthless, that has stood the touch?
No; gold they seem'd, but they were never such.
Horatio's servant once, with bow and cringe,
Swinging the parlour door upon it's hinge,

YARDLEY OAK.

SURVIVOR sole, and hardly such, of all,
That once liv'd here, thy brethren, at my birth,
(Since which I number threescore winters past,)
A shatter'd vet'ran, hollow-trunk'd perhaps,
As now, and with excoriate forks deform,
Relics of ages! Could a mind, imbued
With truth from Heaven, created thing adore,
I might with rev'rence kneel, and worship thee.

It seems idolatry with some excuse,
When our forefather Druids in their oaks
Imagined sanctity. The conscience, yet
Unpurified by an authentic act

Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine,
Lov'd not the light, but, gloomy, into gloom
Of thickest shades, like Adam after taste
Of fruit proscrib'd, as to a refuge, fled.

Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball, Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay, Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin'd The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs

And all thine embryo vastness at a gulp.
But Fate thy growth decreed; autumral rains
Beneath thy parent tree mellow'd the soil
Design'd thy cradle; and a skipping deer,
With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe prepar'd
The soft receptacle, in which, secure,

Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through.

So Fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can, Ye reas'ners broad awake, whose busy search Of argument, employ'd too oft amiss, Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!

Thou fell'st mature; and in the loamy clod *Swelling with vegetative force instinct Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins, Now stars; two lobes, protruding, pair'd exact; A leaf succeeded, and another leaf, And, all the elements thy puny growth Fost'ring propitious, thou becam'st a twig.

Who liv'd, when thou wast such? Oh, couldst
thou speak,

As in Dodona once thy kindred trees
Oracular, I would not curious ask
The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth
Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past.

By thee I might correct, erroneous oft,
The clock of history, facts and events
Timing more punctual, unrecorded facts
Recov'ring, and mis-stated setting right-
Desp'rate attempt, till trees shall speak again!

Time made thee what thou wast, king of the
woods;

And Time hath made thee what thou art a cave
For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs
O'erhung the champaign; and the num'rous flocks,
That graz'd it, stood beneath that ample cope
Uncrowded, yet safe-shelter'd from the storm.
No flock frequents thee now. Thou hast outliv'd
Thy popularity, and art become
(Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing
Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth.

While thus through all the stages thou hast push'd
Of treeship-first a seedling, hid in grass;
Then twig; then sapling; and, as cent'ry roll'd
Slow after century, a giant-bulk

Of girth enormous, with moss-cushion'd root
Upheav'd above the soil, and sides emboss'd
With prominent wens globose-till at the last
The rottenness, which time is charged to inflict
On other mighty ones, found also thee.

What exhibitions various hath the world
Witness'd of mutability in all,
That we account most durable below!
Change is the diet on which all subsist,
Created changeable, and change at last
Destroys them. Skies uncertain now the heat
Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam
Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds —
Calm and alternate storm, moisture and drought,
Invigorate by turns the springs of life
In all that live, plant, animal, and man,
And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads,
Fine passing thought, e'en in her coarsest works,

Delight in agitation, yet sustain

The force that agitates, not unimpair'd;
But, worn by frequent impulse, to the cause
Of their best tone their dissolution owe.

Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still The great and little of thy lot, thy growth From almost nullity into a state

Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence, Slow, into such magnificent decay.

Time was, when, settling on thy leaf, a fly
Could shake thee to the root and time has been

When tempests could not. At thy firmest age
Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents, [deck
That might have ribb'd the sides and plank'd the
Of some flagg'd admiral; and tortuous arms,
The shipwright's darling treasure, didst present
To the four-quarter'd winds, robust and bold,
Warp'd into tough knee-timber *, many a load!
But the axe spar'd thee. In those thriftier days
'Oaks fell not, hewn by thousands, to supply
The bottomless demands of contest, wag'd
For senatorial honours. Thus to Time
The task was left to whittle thee away
With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling edge,
Noiseless, an atom, and an atom more,
Disjoining from the rest, has, unobserv'd,
Achiev'd a labour, which had far and wide,
By man perform'd, made all the forest ring.

Embowell'd now, and of thy ancient self
Possessing nought, but the scoop'd rind, that seems
An huge throat, calling to the clouds for drink,
Which it would give in rivulets to thy root,
Thou temptest none, but rather much forbidd'st
The feller's toil, which thou couldst ill requite.
Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock,
A quarry of stout spurs, and knotted fangs,
Which, crook'd into a thousand whimsies, clasp
The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect.

So stands a kingdom, whose foundation yet Fails not, in virtue and in wisdom laid, Though all the superstructure, by the tooth Pulveriz'd of venality, a shell Stands now, and semblance only of itself!

Thine arms have left thee. them off

Winds have rent

[left Some have

Long since, and rovers of the forest wild
With bow and shaft, have burnt them.
A splinter'd stump, bleach'd to a snowy white;
And some, memorial none, where once they grew.
Yet life still lingers in thee, and puts forth
Proof not contemptible of what she can,
Even where death predominates. The spring
Finds thee not less alive to her sweet force,
Than yonder upstarts of the neighb'ring wood,
So much thy juniors, who their birth receiv'd
Half a millennium since the date of thine.

But since, although well qualified by age To teach, no spirit dwells in thee, nor voice May be expected from thee, seated here

* Knee-timber is found in the crooked arms of oak, which, by reason of their distortion, are easily adjusted to the angle formed where the deck and the ship's sides meet.