Parent of virtue, if thine ear

Attend not now to sorrow's cry;

If now the pity-streaming tear

Should haply on thy cheek be dry;

Indulge my votive strain, O sweet Humanity.

 

Come, ever welcome to my breast!

A tender, but a chearful guest.

Nor always in the gloomy cell

Of life-consuming sorrow dwell;

For sorrow, long-indulg'd and slow,

Is to Humanity a foe;

And grief, that makes the heart its prey,

Wears sensibility away.

Then comes, sweet nymph, instead of thee,

The gloomy fiend, stupidity.

 

O may that fiend be banished far,

Tho' passions hold eternal war!

Nor ever let me cease to know

The pulse that throbs at joy or woe.

Nor let my vacant cheek be dry,

When sorrow fills a brother's eye;

Nor may the tear that frequent flows

From private or from social woes,

E'er make this pleasing sense depart.

Ye Cares, O harden not my heart!

 

If the fair star of fortune smile,

Let not its flattering power beguile.

Nor, borne along the fav'ring tide,

My full sails swell with bloating pride.

Let me from wealth but hope content,

Remembering still it was but lent;

To modest merit spread my store,

Unbar my hospitable door;

Nor feed, for pomp, an idle train,

While want unpitied pines in vain.

 

If heaven, in every purpose wise,

The envied lot of wealth denies;

If doom'd to drag life's painful load

Thro' poverty's uneven road,

And, for the due bread of the day,

Destin'd to toil as well as pray;

To thee, Humanity, still true,

I'll wish the good I cannot do;

And give the wretch, that passes by,

A soothing word—a tear—a sigh.

 

Howe'er exalted, or deprest,

Be ever mine the feeling breast.

From me remove the stagnant mind

Of languid indolence, reclin'd;

The soul that one long sabbath keeps,

And thro' the sun's whole circle sleeps;

Dull Peace, that dwells in Folly's eye,

And self-attending Vanity.

Alike, the foolish, and the vain

Are strangers to the sense humane.

 

O for that sympathetic glow

Which taught the holy tear to flow,

When the prophetic eye survey'd

Sion in future ashes laid!

Or, rais'd to heaven, implor'd the bread

That thousands in the desart fed!

Or, when the heart o'er friendship's grave

Sigh'd and forgot its power to save—

O for that sympathetic glow

Which taught the holy tear to flow!

 

It comes: It fills my labouring breast.

I feel my beating heart opprest.

Oh! hear that lonely widow's wail!

See her dim eye! her aspect pale!

To heaven she turns in deep despair.

Her infants wonder at her prayer,

And, mingling tears they know not why,

Lift up their little hands, and cry.

O God! their moving sorrows see!

Support them, sweet Humanity!

 

Life, fill'd with grief's distressful train,

For ever asks the tear humane.

Behold in yon unconscious grove

The victims of ill-fated love!

Heard you that agonizing throe?

Sure this is not romantic woe!

The golden day of joy is o'er;

And now they part—to meet no more,

Assist them, hearts from anguish free!

Assist them, sweet Humanity!

 

Parent of virtue, if thine ear

Attend not now to sorrow's cry;

If now the pity-streaming tear

Should haply on thy cheek be dry,

Indulge my votive strain, O sweet Humanity!