The following, unlike most songs of the present day, contains a useful moral. TO DAY. THE joys of hope let others boast, And in reversion rest; What scenes tomorrow may be brought, Will ne'er engage one wishful thought, The merchant trades to foreign lands, And buys, and sells, and schemes, and plans, But whelming waves, or wasting fire May take his wealth away; The student, emulous of fame, Be mine e'en now an honored name, The lover too dreams of delight, His fondness to repay; But ne'er let me the attachment slight, And others life incautious spend Tomorrow to be good intend, For danger waits delay; And Heaven will on tomorrow shine, If virtuous prove to day. SELECTED. AN ODE IN IMITATION OF ALCEUS. Ascribed to Sir William Jones. Οὐ λίθοι ἐδὲ ξύλα, ἐδὲ Τέχνη τεκλόνων αἱ πόλεις εἰσὶν, Ἀλλ' όπέ ποτ ̓ ἂν ὦσιν ̓́ΑΝΔΡΕΣ Αὐτὲς σώζειν ειδότες, Ελαῦθα τέχη καὶ πόλεις. WHAT ALC. quoted by ARISTIDES. HAT constitutes a state; Not highraised battlements, or labored mound, Thick wall, or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Where lowbrowed baseness wafts perfume to pride; With powers as far above dull brutes, endued As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; Men, who their duties know, But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the longaimed blow, And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain; And sovereign LAW, that state's collected will, Sits Empress, crowning good, repressing ill; The fiend, discretion, like a vapor, sinks, Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore ! Shall Britons languish, and be MEN no more? Those sweet rewards, which decorate the brave, And steal inglorious to the silent grave. THE following extract from a humorous poem of Marvell, though destitute of the vigor of Dryden and the melody of Pope, may be an amusing accompaniment to the quaint paragraphs of Owen Feltham. HOLLAND, that scarce deserves the name of land, As but the offscouring of the British sand; By English pilots, when they heaved the lead 9 Or what by the ocean's slow allusion fell, Fell to the Dutch by just propriety. Glad then, as miners, who have found the ore, To show them what's their mare liberum. For pickled herring pickled heerin changed. To make a bank was a great plot of state, Hence some small dykegrave, unperceived, invades That bank of conscience, where not one so strange In vain for Catholics ourselves we bear; Nor can civility there want for tillage, Where wisely for their Court they chose a village. |