ALEXANDER POPE.

BORN 1688. DIED 1744.

Principal Works :-Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, Essay on Man, Moral Epistles, the Dunciad, Translation of Homer, &c.

YE nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus and the' Aonian maids,
Delight no more-O Thou my voice inspire
Who touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire!
Rapt into future times, the bard begun :
A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a Son!
From Jesse's root behold a branch arise,
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies :
The' ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic Dove.
Ye heavens! from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower!
The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid,
From storm a shelter, and from heat a shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient frauds shall fail;
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;

Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,
And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend.
Swift fly the years, and rise the' expected morn!
Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!
See, Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing spring:
See lofty Lebanon his head advance,
See nodding forests on the mountains dance:
See spicy clouds from lowly Sharon rise,
And Carmel's flowery top perfume the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears!

A God, a God! the vocal hills reply;
The rocks proclaim the' approaching Deity.
Lo earth receives Him from the bending skies!
Sink down, ye mountains! and ye valleys rise!
With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay!
Be smooth, ye rocks! ye rapid floods, give way!
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold:
Hear him, ye deaf! and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day:
'Tis He the obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
And bid new music charm the unfolding ear:
The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting, like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear;
From every face He wipes off every tear.
In adamantine chains shall death be bound,
And hell's grim tyrant feel the' eternal wound.
As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care,`
Seeks freshest pasture, and the purest air;
Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs,
By day o'ersees them, and by night protects;
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,

Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms:
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promised father of the future age.
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,
Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a plough-share end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
And the same hand that sow'd, shall reap the field.
The swain in barren deserts with surprise
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.

On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys, once perplex'd with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn :

To leafless shrubs the flowery palms succeed,
And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,
And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead.
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.
Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn;
See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;
See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabean springs!
For thee Idumé's spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See heaven its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon them in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away!
But fix'd his word, his saving power remains;
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!

The Dying Christian to his Soul.

VITAL spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh! quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying—
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper; angels say,
"Sister spirit, come away."
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears;
Heaven opens on my eyes; my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:

Lend, lend your wings; I mount, I fly:
Oh grave! where is thy victory?
Oh death! where is thy sting?

JOHN ARBUTHNOT.

BORN ABOUT 1660. DIED 1735.

The friend of Pope and Swift, and associated with them i several humorous prose works. He was the author also of some distinguished medical and scientific treatises.

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Know Thyself.

WHAT am I? how produced? and for what end?
Whence drew I being? to what period tend?
Am I the' abandon'd orphan of blind chance,
Dropp'd by wild atoms in disorder'd dance?

Or from an endless chain of causes wrought,
And of unthinking substance, born with thought?
By motion which began without a cause,
Supremely wise, without design or laws?
Am I but what I seem, mere flesh and blood?
A branching channel, with a mazy flood?
The purple stream that through my vessels glides,
Dull and unconscious flows, like common tides;
The pipes through which the circling juices stray,
Are not that thinking I, no more than they:
This frame, compacted with transcendent skill
Of moving joints obedient to my will,

Nursed from the fruitful glebe, like yonder tree,
Waxes and wastes; I call it mine, not me.
New matter still the mould'ring mass sustains:
The mansion changed, the tenant still remains ;
And from the fleeting stream repair'd by food,
Distinct, as is the swimmer from the flood.

What am I then? sure of a nobler birth;
By parents' right, I own as mother, Earth;
But claim superior lineage by my sire,

Who warm'd the' unthinking clod with heavenly fire;
Essence divine, with lifeless clay allay'd,

By double nature, double instinct sway'd:
With look erect, I dart my longing eye,
Seem wing'd to part, and gain my native sky;
I strive to mount, but strive, alas! in vain,
Tied to this massy globe with magic chain.
Now with swift thought I range from pole to pole,
View worlds around their flaming centres roll:
What steady powers their endless motions guide
Through the same trackless paths of boundless void!
1 trace the blazing comet's fiery tail,

And weigh the whirling planets in a scale;
These godlike thoughts while eager I pursue,
Some glittering trifle offer'd to my view,
A gnat, an insect of the meanest kind,
Erase the new-born image from my mind:
Some beastly want, craving, importunate,
Vile as the grinning mastiff at my gate,
Calls off from heavenly truth this reasoning me,
And tells me I'm a brute as much as he.