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While pregnant, they a mother's load sustain ? By the pale moon they take their destined round, *
They bend in anguish, and cast forth their pain. And lash their sides and furious tear the ground.
Hale are their young, from human frailties freed, Now shrieks and dying groans the desart till ;
Walk unsustained, and unassisted feed : They rage, they rend; their ravenous jaws distil
They live at once, forsake the dam’s warm side, With crimson foam; and when the banquet's o'er
Take the wide world, with Nature for their guide; They stride away, and paint their steps with gore:
Bound o'er the lawn, or seek the distant glade, In flight alone the shepherd puts his trust,
And find a home in each delightful shade. And shudders at the talon in the dust.

Will the tall reem, which knows no lord but me, Mild is my Behemoth, though large his frame;
Low at the crib, and ask an alms of thee ? Smooth is his temper, and repressed his flame;
Submit his unworn shoulder to the yoke, While unprovoked. This native of the flood
Break the stiff clod, and o'er thy furrow smoke? Lifts his broad foot, and puts ashore for food :
Since great his strength, go trust him, void of care, Earth sinks beneath him as he moves along
Lay on his neck the toil of all the year; To seek the herbs, and mingle with the throng.
Bid him bring home the seasons to thy doors, See, with what strength his hardened loins are
And cast his load among the gathered stores. bound,

Didst thou from service the wild ass discharge, All over proof, and shut against a wound!
And break his bonds, and bid him live at large; How like a mountain cedar moves his tail !
Through the wide waste, his ample mansion, roam, Nor can his complicated sinews fail.
And lose himself in his unbounded home? Built high and wide, his solid bones surpass
By Nature's hand magnificently fed,

The bars of steel; his ribs are ribs of brass;
His meal is on the range of mountains spread; His port majestic, and his armed jaw,
As in pure air aloft he bounds along,

Give the wide forest and the mountain law.
He sees in distant smoke the city throng; The mountains feed him; there the beasts admire
Conscious of freedom, scorns the smothered train, The mighty stranger, and in dread retire;
The threatening driver, and the servile rein. At length his greatness nearer they survey,

Survey the warlike horse ! didst thou invest Graze in his shadow, and his eye obey. With thunder his robust distended chest ? The fens and marshes are his cool retreat, No sense of fear his dauntless soul allays, His noontide shelter from the burning heat; 'Tis dreadful to behold his nostrils blaze: Their sedgy bosoms his wide couch are made, To paw the vale he proudly takes delight, And groves of willows give him all their shade. And triumphs in the fulness of his might: His eye drinks Jordan up, when, fired with High raised, he snuffs the battle from afar,

drought, And burns to plunge amid the raging war; He trusts to turn its current down his throat; And mocks at death, and throws his foam around, In lessened waves it creeps along the plain ; And in a storm of fury shakes the ground. He sinks a river, and he thirsts again. How does his firm, his rising heart, advance

Go to the Nile, and, from its frui.ful side, Full on the brandished sword and shaken lance Cast forth thy line into the swelling tide; While his fixed eye-balls meet the dazzling shield, With slender hair Leviathant command, Gaze, and return the lightning of the field ! And stretch his vastness on the loaded strand. He sinks the sense of pain in generous pride,

Will he become thy servant ? will he own Nor feels the shaft that trembles in his side; Thy lordly nod, and tremble at thy frown? But neighs to the shrill trumpet's dreadful blast, Or with his sport amuse thy leisure day, Till death, and when he groans, he groans his last. And, bound in silk with thy soft maidens play? But fiercer still, the lordly lion stalks,

Shall pompous banquets swell with such a prize? Grimly majestic in his lonely walks:

And the bowl journey round his ample size : When round he glares, all living creatures fly; Or the debating merchant share the prey, He clears the desart with his rolling eye.

And various limbs to various marts convey? Say, mortal, does he rouse at thy command, Through his firm skull what steel its way can win? And roar to thee, and live upon thy hand ? What forceful engine can subdue his skin ? Dost thou for him in forests bend thy bow, And to his gloomy den the morsel throw,

Pursuing their prey by night is true of most wild beasts, Where, bent on death, lie hid his tawny brood,

particularly the lion, Psal. civ. 20. The Arabians have one And, crouched in dreadful ambush, pant for blood; among their five hundred names for the lion, which signifies Or stretched on broken limbs, consume the day, the hunter by moonshine. In darkness wrapt, and slumber o'er their prey ?

† The taking the crocodile is most difficult. Diodorus says, they are not to be taken but by iron nets. When Augustus

conquered Egypt, he struck a medal, the impress of which Providence) has the same effect, Ps. xxix. In so early an was a crocodile chained to a palm-tree, with this inscription, nge to observe these things may style our author a naturalist. Nemo antea religavit.

rows:

Fly far, and live; tempt not his matchless might; Far round are fatal damps of terror spread,
The bravest shrink to cowards in his sight; The mighty fear, nor blush to own their dread.
The rashest dare not rouse him up:* who then Large is his front; and when his burnished eyes
Shall turn on me, among the sons of men ? Lift their broad lids, the morning seems to rise.*
Am I a debtor? hast thou ever heard

In vain may death in various shapes invade, Whence come the gifts which are on me conferred? The swift-winged arrow, the descending blade; My lavish fruit a thousand vallies fills,

His naked breast their impotence defies; And mine the herds that graze a thousand hills: The dart rebounds, the brittle faulchion fies. Earth, sea, and air, all Nature is my own, Shut in himself, the war without he hears, And stars and sun are dust beneath my throne;

Safe in the tempest of their rattling spears; And dar’st thou with the world's great Father vie, The cumbered strand their wasted vollies strow; Thou, who dost tremble at my creature's eye? His sport the rage and labour of the foe. At full my huge Leviathan shall rise,

His pastimes like a caldron boil the flood, Boast all his strength, and spread his wondrous And blacken ocean with a rising mud; size :

The billows feel him as he works his way, Who, great in arms, e'er stript his shining mail, His hoary footsteps shine along the sea; Or crowned his triumph with a single scale ? The foam high-wrought, with white divides the Whose heart sustains him to draw near? Behold green, Destruction yawns;t his spacious jaws unfold, And distant sailors point where death has been. And, marshalled round the wide expanse, disclose His like earth bears not on her spacious face; Teeth edged with death, and crowding rows on Alone in nature stands his dauntless race,

For utter ignorance of fear renowned: What hideous fangs on either side arise ! In wrath he rolls his baleful eye around; And what a deep abyss between them lies! Makes every swoln disdainful heart subside, Mete with thy lance, and with thy plumbet sound, And holds dominion o'er the sons of Pride. The one how long, the other how profound !

Then the Chaldean eased his labouring breast, His bulk is charged with such a furious soul, With full conviction of his crime oppressed. That clouds of smoke from his spread nostrils roll “Thou can’st accomplish all things, Lord of As from a furnace; and, when roused his ire,

might! Fate issues from his jaws in streams of fire. I And every thought is naked to thy sight: The

rage of tempests, and the roar of seas, But, oh! thy ways are wonderful, and lie Thy terror, this thy great superior please ; Beyond the deepest reach of mortal eye. Strength on his ample shoulder sits in state;

Oft have I heard of thine Almighty power, His well joined limbs are dreadfully complete; But never saw thee till this dreadful hour. His flakes of solid flesh are slow to part;

O’erwhelmed with shame, the Lord of life I see, As steel his nerves, as adamant his heart. Abhor myself, and give my soul to thee; When, late awaked, he rears him from the floods, Nor shall my weakness tempt thine anger more: And stretching forth his stature to the clouds, Marr is not made to question, but adore." Writhes in the sun aloft his scaly height, And strikes the distant hills with transient light, gives us as great an image of the thing it would express as

His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. I think this

can enter the thought of man. It is not improbable that the This alludes to a custom of this creature, which is when Egyptians stole their hieroglyphic for the morning, which is sated with fish, to come ashore and sleep among the reeds. the crocodile's eye, from this passage, though no commentalor

* The crocodile's mouth is exceeding wide. When he gapes, I have seen mentions it. It is easy to conceive how the Egyp says Pliny, sil totum os. Martial says to his old woman, tiang should be both readers and admirers of the writings of Cum comparata ricuibus tuis ora

Moses, whom I suppose the author of this poem.
Niliacus habet crocodilus augusta,

I have observed already that three or four of the creatures So that the expression there is barely just.

here described are Egyptian; the two last are notoriously so; : This too is nearer truth than at first view may be imagined, habitants of the Nile; and on these two it is that our author

Resignation.

IN TWO PARTS

AND A POSTSCRIPT.

TO MRS. B*****.

My soul shall be satisfied, even as it were with marrow and fatness; when my mouth praiseth thee with joyful lips.

Psalm Lxill. 6 my call

The distance greatly would decrease

Thought is our armour ; 'Tis the mind's 'Twixt human and divine.

Impenetrable shield,

When, sent by Fate, we meet our foes But though full noble is my theme,

In sore Allliction's field: Full urgent

is To soften sorrow, and forbid

It plucks the frightful mask from ills, The bursting tear to fall:

Forbids pale fear to hide,

Beneath that dark disguise a friend,
The task I dread: dare I to leave

Which turns Affection's tide.
Of human prose the shore,
And put to sea! a dangerous sea!

Affection frail! trained up by Sense,
What throngs have sunk before !

From Reason's channel strays,

And whilst it blindly, points at peace,
How proud the poet's billows swell !

Our peace to pain betrays.
The God! the God! his boast;
A boast how vain! what wrecks abound! Thought winds its fond erroneous stream
Dead bards stench every coast.

From daily-uying flowers,

To nourish rich immortal blooms,
What then am I? shall I presume,

In amaranthine bowers :
On such a moulten wing,
Above the general wreck to rise

Whence throngs, in ecstacy, look down
And in my winter sing?

On what once shocked their sight,

And thank the terrors of the past
When nightingales, when sweetest bards,
Confine their charming song

For ages of delight.
To summer's animating heats,

All withers here; who most possess Content to warble young.

Are losers by their gain;

Stung by full proof, that, bad at best,
Yet write I must; a lady* sues ;

Life's idle, all is vain :
How shameful her request !
My brain in labour for dull rhyme !

Vain, in its course, life's murm'ring stream; Hers teeming with the best!

Did not its course offend,

But murmur cease, life, then, would seem
But you a stranger will excuse,

Still vainer from its end.
Nor scorn his feeble strain;
To you a stranger, but, through fate,

How wretched! who, through cruel fate,
No stranger to your pain.

Have nothing to lament,

With the poor alms this world affords,
The ghost of Grief deceased ascends,

Deplorably content ?
His old wound bleeds anew;
His sorrows are recalled to life

Had not the Greek his world mistook,
By those he sees in you:

His wish had been most wise;

To be content with but one world,
Too well he knows the twisted strings

Like him, we should despise,
Of ardent hearts combined,
When rent asunder, how they bleed,

Of earth's revenue would you state
How hard to be resigned.

A full account and fair ?

We hope, and hope, and hope, then cast
Those tears you pour his eyes have shed;

The total up—despair.
The pang you feel he felt;
Thus Nature, loud as Virtue, bids

Since vain all here, all future, vast,
His heart at yours to melt.

Embrace the lot assigned;

Heaven wounds to heal; its frowns are friends; But what can heart or head suggest ?

Its strokes severe most kind.
What sad Experience say?
Through truths austere to peace we work But in lapsed nature rooted deep,
Our rugged gloomy way.

Blind Error domineers,

And on fools' errands in the dark,
What are we? whence ? for what ? and whither ? Sends out our hopes and fears;
Who know not needs must mourn ;
But Thought, bright daughter of the Skies !

Bids us for ever pains deplore,
Can tears to triumph turn.

Our pleasures over-prize;

These oft persuade us to be weak,
Mn. M-

Those urge us to be wise.

From Virtue's rugged path to right,

| Twill sound severe—yet rest assured By pleasure are we brought

I'm studious of your peace; To flowery fields of wrong, and there

Though I should dare to give you joyPain chides us for our fault:

Yes, joy of his decease. Yet whilst it chides it speaks of peace,

An hour shall come, (you question this) If folly is withstood,

An hour, when you shall bless, And says, Time pays an easy price,

Beyond the brightest beams of life, For our eternal good.

Dark days of your distress. In earth's dark cot, and in an hour,

Hear then, without surprise, a truth, And in delusion great,

A daughter truth to this, What an economist is man!

Swift turns of fortune often tie To spend his whole estate,

A bleeding heart to bliss. And beggar an eternity!

Esteem you this a paradox ? For which, as he was born,

My sacred motto read; More worlds than one against it weighed,

A glorious truth, divinely sung As feathers he should scorn.

By one whose heart had bled. Say not your loss in triumph leads,

To resignation swift he flew;

In her a friend he found;
Religion's feeble strife;
Joys future amply reimburse

A friend which blessed him with a smile,
Joys bankrupts of this life.

When gasping with his wound. But not deferred your joy so long,

On earth nought precious is obtained It bears an early date;

But what is painful too; Affliction's ready pay in hand

By travel, and to travel born, Befriends our present state.

Our sabbaths are but few. What are the tears which trickle down

To real joy we work our way, Her melancholy face,

Encountering many a shock, Like liquid pearl ? like pearls of price,

Ere found what truly charms, as found

A Venus in the block.
They purchase lasting peace.
Grief softens hearts, and curbs the will,

In some disaster, some severe
Impetuous passion tames,

Appointment for our sins, And keeps insatiate keen desire

That mother-blessing, (not so called

True happiness, begins.
From launching in extremes.
Through Time's dark womb, our judgment right, By stings of life unvexed;

No martyr e'er defied the flames
If our dim eye was thrown,

First rose some quarrel with this world, Clear should we see the will divine

Then passion for the next. Has but forestalled our own.

You see then pangs are parent pangs, At variance with our future wish,

The pangs of happy birth;. Self-severed, we complain:

Pangs, by which only can be born If so, the wounded, not the wound,

True happiness on earth. Must answer for the pain.

The peopled earth look all around, The day shall come, and swift of wing,

Or through times records run, Though you may think it slow,

And say, what is a man unstruck ? When, in the list of Fortune's smiles,

It is a man undone. You'll enter frowns of wo.

This moment am I deeply stungFor mark the path of Providence;

My bold pretence is tried. This course it has pursued,

When vain man boasts, heaven puts to proof " Pain is the parent, wo the womb,

The vauntings of his pride. Of sound important good :"

Now need I, Madam! your support.Our hearts are fastened to this world

How exquisite the smart! By strong and endless ties;

How critically timed the news*

Which strikes me to the heart!
And every sorrow cuts a string,
And urges us to rise.

. The death of Mr. Richardson.