A452 
Then——if on Faith's ftrong wing thy foul 
can rife, 
The good purfuing Rill, whate’er thy fate, 
Hoping, and feeking, when this dim night 
ends, 
For ** glory, honour, immortality ;” 
Then mayf thou bear the pafling fcene in 
peace, 
Secure, beyond the tomb, of nobler life, 
Where error, vice, and pain, fhall be no more, 
But perfect wifdom and untainted blifs 
Fill the vaft foul, and crown the eternal fcene. 
cC— 
e 
=e 
TO A CANDLE. 
Hal, bright companion of my lonely hours 
My midnight fun, with faintly glim- 
mering ray 5 
To thee thy mafter now a fonnet pours: 
Accept the verfe—tis all the bard can pay. 
When folemn darknefs veils the gloom-fpread 
earth, 
And Night with fable fceptre rules the 
plain, 
‘What time pale: Fear gives fancied fpectres 
birth, 
And imag’d terrors fill the yulgar brain ; 
Then to my fitent chamber I retire, 
Where books and mufing folitude invite, 
‘With fecret pleafure trim my cheerful fire, 
And from its fame my frugal taper light. 
More dear to me thy little quiy’ring rays, 
Which fcarce illume my filent ftudy round, 
Than the proud glare where thoufand torches 
blaze, 
And Mirth and Folly pour their mingled 
found, 
Thefe fpread their light, with glitt’ring ra- 
diance fraught, 
To chafe Refie€tion from the heedlefs 
throng 3 
Thy fober beam affifts the poet’s thought, 
Infpires the lay, and tunes his foul to fong. 
By thy lone light, full oft the Mufe has wove, 
Or tale, or fong, in Fancy’s flow’ry loom: 
Oft has the breath’d the plaintive notes of 
love, 
And mourn’d her fate—a haplefs lover’s 
doom. 
Thou, fole companion of each anxious care, 
Didft yield fweet folace in this pentive hour, 
My bofom’s various thoughts didft feem to 
thare, 
And rife or fall with fympathetic pow’r. 
When tranfient joy beam’d rapture to my 
brea, 
In Fancy’s eye 1 faw thee brighter thine 3 
And when my heart fome hovering fear con- 
feft, 
With gloom congenial did thy flame de- 
¢ling. 
Original Poetry. 
[June 1, 
To thee the poet's grateful fong is due, ; 
To thee, my friend,|(for focial is thy kind} 
Moye than companion, thou’rt a teacher too, 
And much of moral fhew’ft th’ obfervant 
mind. 
Thy gradual wafte in unperceiv’d decay, 
May well to man a moral leffan teach: 
Thus glide his years in filent courfe away, 
Towards that peuee we all are doom’d ta 
reach. 
Be thou my friend—<and as thy luftre, mine, 
And when life’s lamp but gleams with fee~ 
ble pow’r, 
Clear as thy flame may parting reafon fhine, 
Warm in decay, and bright in life’s laft 
hour ! N. A. 
ERE ee 
THE FOLLY OF ATHEISM. 
AN ODE, BY DR. DARWIN.* 
© Tam fearfully and wonderfully made.” 
DULL Atheift! could a giddy dance - 
Of atoms lawlefs hurled, 
Canftru& fo wonderful, fo wife, 
So harmonized a world’ ? 
Why do net Arabes driving fandlig 
The fport of every ftorm, 
Fair freiglited fleets, the child of chancey 
Or gorgeous temples form ? 
Prefumptuous wretch ! thyfelf furvey, 
That leffer fabric fcan; 
Tell me from whence th’ immortal duft, 
The god, the reptile man? 
Where waft thou, when this populous earth 
From chaos burft its way, 
When ftars exulting fang the morn, 
And hailed the new-born day ? 
What, when the embryo {peck of life, 
The miniature of man, 
Nurfed in the womb, its flender form 
To ftretch and on pena 2 
# Great and la men have often been 
prominent objects of calumny to the bigotted, 
the ignorant, and the malevolent; and it 
has been afferted, with fufficient hardihood, ° 
that the elegant writer of . this ode was ae 
Atheift. Upon thofz who are inflamed with 
that kind of incurable infanity, which blinds 
the eyes and ftops the ears~—who determine 
rather from paflion than from reafon, this 
proof will have no effeét; but thofe who are 
actuated by a fpirit of truth and candour to. 
wards the characters of men will readily be 
convinced that the charge is unfounded and 
malicious. Dr. Darwin will long be deplored, 
as a philofopher, by every man of {cience 5 
as a poet, by the lovers of harmony and tafte 3 
and asa phyfician, by all who could difcrimi- 
nate, and all who have experienced the be- 
nefit of his profound knowledge and exquifite 
judgment. I have tranfcribed this Ode from 
the MS. of an old friend of Dr. Darwin, to 
whom the Dottor gave it when he refided in 
this city. T.D.. 
é ‘Bayg 
