LOGAN. HYMN. WHERE high the heavenly temple stands, The house of God not made with hands, A great High Priest our nature wears, The Patron of Mankind appears. He who for men in mercy stood, Though now ascended up on high, Our fellow-sufferer yet retains, In every pang that rends the heart, With boldness, therefore, at the throne, Let us make all our sorrows known, And ask the aids of heavenly power, To help us in the evil hour. SIR WILLIAM JONES. AN ODE. WHAT constitutes a State ? Not high-raised battlement or laboured mound, Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude; But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain : And sovereign Law, that State's collected will, Sits Empress, crowning good, repressing ill; The fiend dissension like a vapour sinks, Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore ! No more shall Freedom smile? Shall Britons languish, and be men no more? Since all must life resign, Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave, 'Tis folly to decline, And steal inglorious to the silent grave, BURN THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. My loved, my honoured, much respected friend, My dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise: To you I sing, in simple Scotish lays, The lowly train in life's sequestered scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aiken in a cottage would have been ; Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween. November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; The shortening winter-day is near a close The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; The blackening trains o' craws to their repose: The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. |