Whose harmless life in silent flow

Within these circling shades has past, What happier death could Heaven bestow, Than in these shades to breathe his last?

'Twas here he fell: not far removed

Has earth received him in her breast; Still far beside the scenes he loved, In holy ground his relicks rest. Each clambering woodbine, flaunting rose, Which round yon bower he taught to wave, With every fragrant brier that blows, Shall send a wreath to bind his grave.

Each village matron, village maid,

Shall with chaste fingers chaplets tie.

Due honours to the rural dead,
And emblems of mortality.
Each village swain that passes by,
A sigh shall to his memory give;
For sure his death demands a sigh,
Whose life instructs them how to live.

If spirits walk, as fabling age

Relates to childhood's wondering ear,

Full oft, does fancy dare presage,
Shall Walter's faithful shade be here;

Athwart yon glade, at night's pale noon,
Full oft shall glide with busy feet,
And by the glimmering of the moon
Revisit each beloved retreat:

Perhaps the tasks on earth he knew
Resume, correct the gadding spray,
Brush from the plants the sickly dew,
Or chase the noxious worm away.
The bursting buds shall gladlier grow,
No midnight blasts the flowers shall fear;
And many a fair effect shall show
At noon that Walter has been here.

Nay, every morn, in times to come,
If quainter ringlets curl the shade,
If richer breezes breathe perfume,

If softer swell the verdant glade,
If neatness charm a thousand ways,
Till nature almost art appear,
Tradition's constant favourite theme,

Shall be-Poor Walter has been here.

MOSES BROWNE.

1703-1787.

This writer was originally a pen-cutter, but he took orders, and obtained the vicarage of Olney, and was also chaplain to Morden College; he was one of the first contributors to the Gentleman's Magazine, and obtained some of the prizes offered by Mr. Cave for the best Poems; besides some dramatick pieces, and an edition of Isaac Walton's Complete Angler; he published, 1 a volume of Poems, 1739. 2 Sunday Thoughts, a Poem, 1749 3 Percy Lodge, a descriptive Poem, 1756. His Piscatory Eclogues were reprinted in 1773.

He seems to have enjoyed life to the very last. Cooper had wished for his Parsonage for Lady Hesketh But Moses Browne our Vicar,' he says, who as I told you is in his eighty-sixth year, is not bound to die for that reason;' he said himself when he was here last summer, 'that he should live ten years longer, and for ought that appears, so he may.' His letter is dated 1786, and if its statement be accurate, as seems probable, Browne must have been born in 1700.

From An Essay on the Universe.

*

Why did Heaven produce

This Orb, but for his Planets, mutual use?
Have theirs, to cherish with their vital fires,
No happy train, no circulating choirs?
Shine they all void thro' solitary space?
Fair to no service? fruitful with no race?
No Reptile, Plant, or Animal, to tend?
Vast without worth? and active, for no end?
O! rather think, since form'd with equal powers,
Heaven meant their systems as complete as ours.
O'erwhelming image! what a boundless scene
Breaks on the mind! what musings intervene !
What!-when Discoveries still their sum enlarge,
Swell on, and mental Faculties o'ercharge
With the perspective, lo! th' Observer sees
More numerous Orbs, and more, succeed to
these.

In the bright knot, where six small Pleiads shine,
Full seventy clustering luminaries join;

Where famed Orion's constellation glows,

Two thousand mingled Stars their Orbs disclose.

How thick, discernible to aided sight,

Their central forms possess the milky height !
Whose spheres elude the reach of naked eyes,
And seem with light to belt the whiten'd skies.
Have each (a sovereign in his system's bound)
Their lighted Earths and Moons revolving round,
Inhabitable all? their plants and flowers?
Their Insects, Animals, and reasoning pow'rs?
Confute it, Mortal! whose elating pride
Would to thyself the Universe divide.

What, tho' no Planets round these Orbs of light
Appear, thus distant, to thy failing sight,

Seen from their Region would thy Wanderers run
To a like point, all shrunk within thy sun.
Thy Sun would seem, by a remove so far,
Diminutive as theirs, supposed a Star,

View'd with his kindred lamps (their night to cheer)

In the same surface of one concave sphere.
Say, do Reflections, Man! enlarged like these,
Thy vain ambition's ruling lust displease;
Yet, humble Christian, thy unswelling mind
May from their lessons, deep instruction find.
Jesus, the God! the existing worlds proclaim,
To Thee related by a dearer Name;