Why did Heaven produce
This Orb, but for his Planets, mutual use?
Have theirs, to cherish with their vital fires,
No happy train, no circulating choirs?
Shine they all void thro' solitary space?
Fair to no service? fruitful with no race?
No Reptile, Plant, or Animal, to tend?
Vast without worth? and active, for no end?
O! rather think, since form'd with equal powers,
Heaven meant their systems as complete as ours.
O'erwhelming image! what a boundless scene
Breaks on the mind! what musings intervene !
What!-when Discoveries still their sum enlarge,
Swell on, and mental Faculties o'ercharge
With the perspective, lo! th' Observer sees
More numerous Orbs, and more, succeed to
In the bright knot, where six small Pleiads shine, Full seventy clustering luminaries join;
Where famed Orion's constellation glows,
Two thousand mingled Stars their Orbs disclose.
How thick, discernible to aided sight,
Their central forms possess the milky height!
Whose spheres elude the reach of naked eyes,
And seem with light to belt the whiten'd skies.
Have each (a sovereign in his system's bound)
Their lighted Earths and Moons revolving round,
Inhabitable all? their plants and flowers?
Their Insects, Animals, and reasoning pow'rs?
Confute it, Mortal! whose elating pride
Would to thyself the Universe divide.
What, tho' no Planets round these Orbs of light
Appear, thus distant, to thy failing sight,
Seen from their Region would thy Wanderers run
To a like point, all shrunk within thy sun.
The Sun would seem, by a remove so far,
Diminutive as theirs, supposed a Star,
View'd with his kindred lamps (their night to cheer)
In the same surface of one concave sphere.
Say, do Reflections, Man! enlarged like these,
Thy vain ambition's ruling lust displease;
Yet, humble Christian, thy unswelling mind
May from their lessons, deep instruction find.
Jesus, the God! the existing worlds proclaim,
To Thee related by a dearer Name;
Jesus, the Man! the incarnate, saving friend! To thy admiring thoughts they more commend;
He, who thy Nature bore, thy sins attoned,
Is Lord of all this vast Creation own'd.
If lessen'd by the view thyself thou see,
The more his love it magnifies for thee.
He was Secretary to the Society for the encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, &c.
The specimen is taken from a volnme of Essays, Letters, and Poems, published, 1781.
To her loved lord, who on a hostile shore,
Sees the war rage, and hears the cannons roar —
To her loved lord, on whom her life depends;
These tender lines distress'd Lavinia sends.
I write, (sad task !) that helps to wear away
The long, long, mournful, melancholy day,
Write what the fervours of my soul inspire,
And vainly fan love's slow consuming fire.
With unawailing sorrow sunk, I grow,
A silent, weeping, monument of woe!
Yet hope's kind rays, sometimes afford relief,
And, for a moment, chase the clouds of grief;
Past scenes of bliss, in vision, I survey,
When pleasure led the smiling hours of day:
But soon, ah! soon, the fleeting phantoms fly,
And real woes their vacant place supply.
O memory, source of happiness or woe,
As from thy stores past joys or sorrows flow,
How oft hast thou recall'd those happy hours,
Enjoy'd, by silver streams, in blooming bowers;
While every breeze that fann'd the conscious grove
Wafted around our vows of mutual love;
When I his suit with modest blush approved,
And sighs unconscious told how well I loved;
When he, enamour'd, snatch'd me to his arms,
And gazed, delighted, on my youthful charms!
To witness calling every power above,
He vow'd a fix'd, inviolable love ;
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