INSCRIPTION FOR AN ICE-HOUSE.

STRANGER, approach! within this iron door

Thrice locked and bolted, this rude arch beneath

That vaults with ponderous stone the cell; confined By man, the great magician, who controuls

Fire, earth and air, and genii of the storm,

And bends the most remote and opposite things

To do him service and perform his will,

A giant sits; stern Winter;, here he piles,
While summer glows around, and southern gales
Dissolve the fainting world, his treasured snows
Within the rugged cave.-Stranger, approach!
He will not cramp thy limbs with sudden age,
Nor wither with his touch the coyest flower
That decks thy scented hair. Indignant here,

Like fettered Sampson when his might was spent

In puny feats to glad the festive halls

Of Gaza's wealthy sons; or he who sat

Midst laughing girls submiss, and patient twirled

The slender spindle in his sinewy grasp;

The rugged power, fair Pleasure's minister,
Exerts his art to deck the genial board;

Congeals the melting peach, the nectarine smooth,

Burnished and glowing from the sunny wall:

Darts sudden frost into the crimson veins

Of the moist berry; moulds the sugared hail :
Cools with his icy breath our flowing cups;
Or gives to the fresh dairy's nectared bowls
A quicker zest. Sullen he plies his task,
And on his shaking fingers counts the weeks
Of lingering Summer, mindful of his hour

To rush in whirlwinds forth, and rule the

year.

AN AUTUMNAL THOUGHT:

1795.

'Tis past! we breathe! assuaged at length

The flames that drank our vital strength!
Smote with intolerable heat

No more our throbbing temples beat.

How clear the sky, how pure the air,

The heavens how bright, the earth how fair!

The bosom cool, the spirits light,

Active the day, and calm the night!

But O, the swiftly shortening day!

Low in the west the sinking ray!

With rapid pace advancing still

"The morning hoar, the evening chill,"

The falling leaf, the fading year,

And Winter ambushed in the rear!

Exults, in conscious worth elate,
Lord of himself-almost of fate;

Then, then declines the' unsteady flame,

Disease, slow mining, saps the frame;
Cold damps of age around are shed,

That chill the heart, and cloud the head.

The failing spirits prompt no more,

The curtain drops, life's day is o'er.

TO THE POOR.

CHILD of distress, who meet'st the bitter scorn Of fellow-men to happier prospects born,

Doomed Art and Nature's various stores to see

Flow in full cups of joy—and not for thee;
Who seest the rich, to heaven and fate resigned,
Bear thy afflictions with a patient mind;

Whose bursting heart disdains unjust controul,
Who feel'st oppression's iron in thy soul,

Who dragg'st the load of faint and feeble years, Whose bread is anguish, and whose water tears; Bear, bear thy wrongs-fulfill thy destined hour, Bend thy meek neck beneath the foot of Power; But when thou feel'st the great deliverer nigh, And thy freed spirit mounting seeks the sky,