The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

AUTUMNAL ODE

SUMMER's glories are departing.
Gloomy Winter preens on,
Into life but lately starting.
Flow'rets say they must be gone.
Down the Southern region stealing:
See the Sun a courting goes,
Like a fickle Lover dealing,
Leaves, but yet reluctance shews.
Permanence no where presenting,
Floats itself in human thing.
Strongest, sternest, all relenting,
Novelties perpetual spring.
Little, scant, and ever failing,
Is the circumstance of Man,
Small his force and unavailing,
Ending Just as it began.
O'er the sea of short existence
Various pleasures lure his sail.
Folly shortens every distance,
Hope, delusive hope! the gale.
Vigour beauty, ever moving,
Visit every shape and size,
Here forsaking, there improving,
Men, beasts, fishes, fowls, and flies.
Blended in one common portion,
All are swept beneath the sky;
Say whereto this wide abortion,
Whither active spirits fly?
Just emerg'd to life surprising,
Wondering intellectuals view,
Scenes, unthought by poets, rising,
Strange as pence never drew.
Wild delights coming their fancies,
In impassive life they play,
Swifter than the lightning glances,
Purer than the visual ray.
To this happy region tending,
Let me vigorous health employ,
Where no fear, no loss impending,
Joy can only change for joy.
Let no guilty act reflection,
Unremitting gnaw my mind,
Move my soul, in kind direction,
To the whole of human kind.
Innocence and truth combining,
Smile, if rage its thunder rolls;
Fraud and malice ill designing,
Shock but cannot wound the soul.
Thousand vices round us storming
Ever-lasting warfare keep:
Providence the whole reforming,
Bids the individual weep.
But his tears are not forgotten,
In a world on virtue's plan,
Snatch'd from all that's weak and rotten,
Lives the here rejected man.
Early honours, pomp and rattle,
How and wherefoever thrown,
Like a mark impress'd on cattle,
Prove us only not our own,
Pining under degradation,
Yet, all souls of human race,
Play their vain imagination,
Each to rise above his place.
But in different scale of being
Higher worth alone resides.
Where from vile corruption freeing,
Excellence of mind presides.
Spirit, then, its value stating,
Rises mighty o'er this clod,
To ecstatic glories hasting,
In the presence of its GOD.