Works

As slow I climb the cliff's ascending side,
Much musing on the track of terror past,
When o'er the dark wave rode the howling blast,
Pleased I look back, and view the tranquil tide...

Hark! angel voices from the sky
Proclaim a Saviour's birth;
Glory, they sing, to God on high,
Peace and goodwill on earth!

Catch the glad strain, ye seraphs bright!
The glorious tidings spread;...

Yes! from mine eyes the tears unbidden start,
As thee, my country, and the long-lost sight
Of thy own cliffs, that lift their summits white
Above the wave, once more my beating heart...

Who comes (my soul no longer doubt),
Rising from earth's wormy sod,
And whilst ten thousand angels sing,
Ascends - ascends to heaven, a God?

Saviour, Lord, I know thee now!...

He left us; we, the hour of parting come,
To Prasidamus' hospitable home,
Myself and Eucritus, together wend,
With young Amynticus, our blooming friend:
There, all delighted, through the summer day,...

See, sister, where the chickens trip,
All busy in the morn!
Look how their heads they dip and dip,
To peck the scattered corn!

Dear sister, shall we shut our eyes,
And to the sight be blind,...

Lo! where youth and beauty lie,
Cold within the tomb!
As the spring's first violets die,
Withered in their bloom.
O'er the young and buried bride,
Let the cypress wave:...

Stranger! a while beneath this aged tree
Rest thee, the hills beyond, and flowery meads,
Surveying; and if Nature's charms may wake
A sweet and silent transport at thine heart,...

How clear a strife of light and shade is spread!
The face how touched with nature's loveliest red!
The eye, how eloquent, and yet how meek!
The glow subdued, yet mantling on thy cheek!...

Dear Mary, if thy little bird
Should, all the winter long,
Pleased from the window to be heard,
Repay thee with a song;

A lesson let it still convey
To all with sense endued;...

My father's grave, I heard her say,
And marked a stealing tear;
Oh, no! I would not go away,
My father's grave is here!

A thousand thronging sympathies
The lonely spot endear,...

Clysdale! as thy romantic vales I leave,
And bid farewell to each retiring hill,
Where musing memory seems to linger still,
Tracing the broad bright landscape; much I grieve...

O Lord, in sickness and in health,
To every lot resigned,
Grant me, before all worldly wealth,
A meek and thankful mind!

As, life, thy upland path we tread,
And often pause in vain,...

Old Andrews of the hut is dead,
And many a child appears,
Whilst slowly "dust to dust" is read,
Around his grave in tears.

A good man gone where small and great,
And poor, and high and low,...

The Sabbath bells are knolling slow,
The summer morn how fair!
Whilst father, mother, children go,
And seek the house of prayer.

Some, musing, roam the churchyard round,...

Come, let us, ere we go to bed,
O'er the decaying embers chat,
Though little Mary hangs her head,
And strokes no more the purring cat.

And let us tell how prisoners pine...

The sheep were in the fold at night,
And now a new-born lamb
Totters and trembles in the light,
Or bleats beside its dam.

How anxiously the mother tries,
With every tender care,...

The bee is humming in the sun,
The yellow cowslip springs,
And, hark! from yonder woodland's side
Again the cuckoo sings!

Cuckoo, cuckoo, no other note
She sings from day to day;...

As homeward by the evening star
I pass along the plain,
I see the taper's light afar,
Shine through our cottage pane.

My brothers and my sisters dear,
The child upon the knee,...

Let us unfold God's holy book,
And by the taper's light,
With hearts subdued, and sober look,
So spend the Sabbath night.

Where now the thoughts of anxious life,
Its guilty pleasures, where?...