Mitchell, Joseph (c. 1684-1738)

To the Right Honourable John Earl of Stair, Before the Election of Sixteen Peers for Scotland, Anno Dom. 1722.

1729

"So shall not Death, with an unfriendly Frown, / Inglorious, throw thy ruin'd Cottage down"

Be taught, my Soul, with an assiduous Strife,
To manage well th' important Hours of Life.
With solemn Awe, the Ways of Truth revere,
And all thou do'st, by Wisdom's Dictates, steer.
So shall not Death, with an unfriendly Frown,
Inglorious, throw thy ruin'd Cottage down:
But, smiling, lead thee thro' the dubious Way,
And leave thee raptur'd in immortal Day.
So sings the Muse, by pious Fancy warm'd;
But, ah! how weakly is the Conduct arm'd?
We think, resolve, and make Essays to live;
Yet faster in the devious Courses drive.
Reason exerts her pure, celestial, Rays,
To guide our Steps thro' Errors weary Maze:
But upstart Passions mount her rightful Throne,
And blindly push our vanquish'd Judgment on.
Hence we, perversely, wander, in the Night,
Uncertain, when the Road, we take, is right.

Architecture::Cottage

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Poem dated 1722. 3 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1729, 1732).

Text from Joseph Mitchell, Poems on Several Occasions, 2 vols. (London: Harmen Noorthouck, 1732). <Link to ECCO>

See also Poems on Several Occasions. (London: Printed for the author, and sold by L. Gilliver at Homer’s Head against St. Dunstan’s Church, Fleetstreet, 1729). <Link to ESTC>

01/25/2006