II. JUSTICE. BY THOMAS SCOTT. 1 FORBID it, Heav'n, that e'er I eat The bread of craftiness and wrong, A curse would poison all my meat, As fatal as the viper's tongue. 2 I ne'er will raise a poor man's sigh, His hire shall never swell my store; I dread the poor man's plaintive cry, I fear the Father of the Poor. 3 If I in darkness (base misdeed!) Cancel from earth my hated name. 4 Ah! no; let me with strong delight Revering thy all-righteous sway. Such virtue thou wilt ne'er forget, III. ADVERSITY. BY THOMAS SCOTT. 1 How high our sanguine hopes we raise! These mortal objects of our love 2 O bitter change! when Heav'n's kind hand Our feeble reason scarce can stand L We weep, we laugh, in mad extreme; 3 Stoics, who on your strength presume, In vain you hail him good and great, And equal to your mighty Jove. 4 Vain world, whose scenes of bliss and woe Are shifting every fleeting hour; No longer shall our spirits owe Their peace, or trouble, to thy pow'r. Teach us, thou Comforter divine, Contentment; should our all be gone : Teach us submission meek as thine, "Father, thy will, not mine be done." IV. DISAPPOINTMENT. BY HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 1 Come, Disappointment, come! Come in thy meekest, saddest guise; The restless and the bad. But I recline Beneath thy shrine, And round my brow resign'd, thy peaceful cypress twine. 2 Tho' Fancy flies away Before thy hollow tread, Yet Meditation in her cell, Hears, with faint eye, the ling'ring knell, And tho' the tear By chance appear, Yet who can smile and say, my all was not laid here. 3 Come, Disappointment, come! Tho' from hope's summit hurl'd, To turn my eye From vanity, And point to scenes of bliss that never, never die. 4 What is this passing scene? A peevish April day! A little sun-a little rain, And then night sweeps along the plain, And all things fade away. Man (soon discuss'd) Yields up his trust, And all his hopes and fears lie with him in the dust. 5 Oh! what is Beauty's power? It flourishes and dies; Will the cold earth its silence break, To tell how soft, how smooth a cheek, |