Cottage Poems | Page 5

she was gentle, fair, and kind,
To no seducing schemes inclined,

Would blush to hear a smutty tale,
Nor ever strolled o'er hill or
dale,
But lived a sweet domestic maid,
To lend her aged parents
aid--
And oft they gazed and oft they smiled
On this their loved and
only child:
They thought they might in her be blest,
And she would
see them laid at rest.
A blithesome youth of courtly mien
Oft called to see this rural queen:

His oily tongue and wily art
Soon gained Maria's yielding heart.

The aged pair, too, liked the youth,
And thought him naught but love
and truth.
The village feast at length is come;
Maria by the youth's
undone:
The youth is gone--so is her fame;
And with it all her sense
of shame:
And now she practises the art
Which snared her
unsuspecting heart;
And vice, with a progressive sway,
More
hardened makes her every day.
Averse to good and prone to ill,

And dexterous in seducing skill;
To look, as if her eyes would melt:

T' affect a love she never felt;
To half suppress the rising sigh;

Mechanically to weep and cry;
To vow eternal truth, and then
To
break her vow, and vow again;
Her ways are darkness, death, and hell:

Remorse and shame and passions fell,

And short-lived joy, with
endless pain,
Pursues her in a gloomy train.
O Britain fair, thou queen of isles!
Nor hostile arms nor hostile wiles

Could ever shake thy solid throne
But for thy sins. Thy sins alone

Can make thee stoop thy royal head,
And lay thee prostrate with
the dead.
In vain colossal England mows,
With ponderous strength,
the yielding foes;

In vain fair Scotia, by her side,
With courage flushed and Highland
pride,
Whirls her keen blade with horrid whistle
And lops off heads
like tops of thistle;
In vain brave Erin, famed afar,
The flaming
thunderbolt of war,
Profuse of life, through blood does wade,
To
lend her sister kingdom aid:
Our conquering thunders vainly roar

Terrific round the Gallic shore;
Profoundest statesmen vainly
scheme--
'Tis all a vain, delusive dream,
If treacherously within our
breast
We foster sin, the deadly pest.
Where Sin abounds Religion dies,
And Virtue seeks her native skies;

Chaste Conscience hides for very shame,
And Honour's but an
empty name.
Then, like a flood, with fearful din,
A gloomy host
comes pouring in.
First Bribery, with her golden shield,
Leads
smooth Corruption o'er the field;
Dissension wild, with brandished
spear,
And Anarchy bring up the rear:
Whilst Care and Sorrow,
Grief and Pain
Run howling o'er the bloody plain.
O Thou, whose power resistless fills
The boundless whole, avert
those ills
We richly merit: purge away
The sins which on our vitals
prey;
Protect, with Thine almighty shield
Our conquering arms by
flood and field,
Wheel round the time when Peace shall smile
O'er
Britain's highly-favoured Isle;
When all shall loud hosannas sing
To
Thee, the great Eternal King!
But hark! the bleak, loud whistling wind!
Its crushing blast recalls to
mind
The dangers of the troubled deep;
Where, with a fierce and
thundering sweep,
The winds in wild distraction rave,
And push
along the mountain wave
With dreadful swell and hideous curl!


Whilst hung aloft in giddy whirl,
Or drop beneath the ocean's bed,

The leaky bark without a shred
Of rigging sweeps through dangers
dread.
The flaring beacon points the way,
And fast the pumps loud
clanking play:
It 'vails not--hark! with crashing shock
She's
shivered 'gainst the solid rock,
Or by the fierce, incessant waves
Is
beaten to a thousand staves;
Or bilging at her crazy side,
Admits the

thundering hostile tide,
And down she sinks!--triumphant rave
The
winds, and close her wat'ry grave!
The merchant's care and toil are vain,
His hopes He buried in the
main--
In vain the mother's tearful eye
Looks for its sole remaining
joy--
In vain fair Susan walks the shore,
And sighs for him she'll
see no more--
For deep they lie in ocean's womb,
And fester in a
wat'ry tomb.
Now, from the frothy, thundering main,
My meditations seek the
plain,
Where, with a swift fantastic flight,
They scour the regions of
the night,
Free as the winds that wildly blow
O'er hill and dale the
blinding snow,
Or, through the woods, their frolics play,
And
whirling, sweep the dusty way,
When summer shines with burning
glare,
And sportive breezes skim the air,
And Ocean's glassy breast
is fanned
To softest curl by Zephyr bland.
But Summer's gone, and Winter's here--
With iron sceptre rules the
year--
Beneath this dark inclement sky
How many wanderers faint
and die!
One, flouncing o'er the treacherous snow,
Sinks in the pit
that yawns below!
Another numbed, with panting lift
Inhales the
suffocating drift!
And creeping cold, with stiffening force,
Extends
a third, a pallid corse!
Thus death, in varied dreadful form,
Triumphant rides along the
storm:
With shocking scenes assails the sight,
And makes more sad
the dismal night!
How blest the man, whose lot is free
From such
distress and misery;
Who, sitting by his blazing fire,
Is closely
wrapt in warm attire;
Whose sparkling glasses blush with wine
Of
mirthful might and flavour fine;
Whose house, compact and strong,
defies
The rigour of the angry skies!
The ruffling winds may blow
their last,
And snows come driving on the blast;
And frosts their icy
morsels fling,
But all within is mild as spring!

How blest is he!--blest did I say?
E'en sorrow here oft finds its way.

The senses numbed by frequent use,
Of criminal, absurd abuse

Of heaven's blessings, listless grow,
And life