ADDRESS TO ADVERSITY.—GRAY.
Daughter of heaven, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge, and tort'ring hour,
The bad affright, afflict the best!
The gen'rous spark extinct revive;
Teach me to love and to forgive;
Exact my own defects to scan:
What others are to feel; and know myself a man.
TRANSPOSED.
Daughter of heaven, relentless power, thou tamer of the human breast, whose iron scourge and torturing hour affright the bad, and afflict the best! Revive thou in me the generous, extinct spark; and teach thou me to love others, and to forgive them; and teach thou me to scan my own defects exactly, or critically: and teach thou me that which others are to feel; and make thou me to know myself to be a man.
ADDRESS TO THE ALMIGHTY.—POPE.
What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This teach me more than hell to shun,
That more than heav'n pursue.
TRANSPOSED.
O God, teach thou me to pursue that (the thing) which conscience dictates to be done, more ardently than I pursue heaven; and teach thou me to shun this (the thing) which conscience warns me not to do, more cautiously than I would shun hell.
TRIALS OF VIRTUE.—MERRICK.
For see, ah! see, while yet her ways
With doubtful step I tread,
A hostile world its terrors raise,
Its snares delusive spread.
O how shall I, with heart prepared,
Those terrors learn to meet?
How, from the thousand snares to guard
My unexperienced feet?