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Effusive source of evidence and truth!

A lustre shedding o'er th' ennobled mind,
Stronger than summer noon; and pure as that,
Whose mild vibrations sooth the parted soul,
New to the dawning of celestial day.

1735

Hence through her nourished powers, enlarged by thee, She springs aloft, with elevated pride,

Above the tangling mass of low desires,

That bind the fluttering crowd; and, angel-winged,

The heights of science and of virtue gains,

1740

Where all is calm and clear; with Nature round,
Or in the starry regions, or th' abyss,

To Reason's and to Fancy's eye displayed

The First uptracing, from the dreary void,
The chain of causes and effects to HIM,

1745

The world-producing Essence, who alone
Possesses being; while the Last receives

The whole magnificence of heaven and earth,
And every beauty, delicate or bold,

Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense,

1750

Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.

Tutored by thee, hence Poetry exalts

Her voice to ages, and informs the page

With music, image, sentiment, and thought,
Never to die! the treasure of mankind!
Their highest honor, and their truest joy!

1755

Without thee what were unenlightened Man?

A savage roaming through the woods and wilds,
In quest of prey; and with th' unfashioned fur
Rough clad; devoid of every finer art
And elegance of life. Nor happiness
Domestic, mixed of tenderness and care,

1760

Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss,

Nor guardian law were his; nor various skill
To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool
Mechanic; nor the heavcu-conducted prow
Of navigation bold, that fearless braves
The burning line, or dares the wintry pole,

1765

Mother severe of infinite delights!
Nothing, save rapine, indolence, and guile,
And woes on woes, a still revolving train!
Whose horrid circle had made human life
Than non-existence worse; but, taught by thee,
Ours are the plans of policy and peace;
To live like brothers, and conjunctive all,

1770

1775

Embellish life. While thus laborious crowds
Ply the tough oar, Philosophy directs

The ruling helm; or like the liberal breath
Of potent heaven, invisible, the sail

Swells out, and bears th` inferior world along.
Nor to this evanescent speck of earth

1796

Poorly confined, the radiant tracks on high
Are her exalted range; intent to gaze
Creation through; and, from that full complex
Of never-ending wonders, to conceive

1785

Of the SOLE BEING right, who spoke the word,
And Nature moved complete, With inward view,
Thence on th' ideal kingdom swift she turns
Her eye; and instant, at her powerful glance,
Th' obedient phantoms vanish or appear;
Compound, divide, and into order shift,
Each to his rank, from plain perception up
To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train :
To reason then, deducing truth from truth,
And notion quite abstract; where first begins
The world of spirits, action all, and life
Unfettered and unmixed. But here the cloud
(So wills Eternal Providence) sits deep;
Enough for us to know that this dark state,

1790

1795

In wayward passions lost, and vain pursuits,
This Infancy of Being, cannot prove
The final issue of the works of Gon,

1800

By boundless Love and perfect Wisdom formed,
And ever rising with the rising mind.

AUTUMN.

The subject proposed. Addressed to Mr. Onslow. A prospect
of the fields ready for harvest. Reflections in praise of industry,
raised by that view. Reaping. A tale relative to it. A harvest
storm. Shooting and hunting, their barbarity. A ludicrous
acco nt of fox-hunting. A view of an orchard. Wall-fruit.
A vineyard. A description of fogs, frequent in the latter part
of Autumn: whence a digression, inquiring into the rise of
fountains and rivers. Birds of season considered, that now
shift their habitation. The prodigious number of them that
cover the northern and western isles of Scotland; hence a
view of the country. A prospect of the discolored, fading
woods. After a gentle, dusky day, moonlight. Autumnal me-
teors. Morning; to which succeeds a calm, pure, sunshiny
day, such as usually shuts up the season. The harvest being
gathered in, the country dissolved in joy. The whole concludes
with a panegyric on a philosophical country life.

CROWNED with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on; the Doric reed once more,
Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost
Nitrous prepared, the various-blossomed Spring
Put in white promise forth, and Suminer suns
Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view,
Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme.

Onslow the Muse, ambitious of thy name,
To grace, inspire, and dignify her song,
Would from the public voice thy gentle ear
A while engage
Thy noble care she knows
The patriot virtues that distend thy thought,
Spread on thy front, and in thy bosom glow;
While listening senates hang upon thy tongue,
Devolving through the maze of eloquence
A roll of periods sweeter than her song.

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But she, too, pants for public virtue, she,

Though weak of power, yet strong in ardent will,
Whene'er her country rushes on her heart,

Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries

20

To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame.

When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days, And Libra weighs in equal scales the year;

From heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence shook Of parting Summer, a serener blue,

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30

With golden light enlivened, wide invests
The happy world. Attempered suns arise,
Sweet-beamed, and shedding oft through lucid clouds
A pleasing calm; while broad, and brown, below
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain;

A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air

Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow. 35
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;

The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By fits effulgent gilds th' illumined field,
And black by fits the shadows sweep along.
A gaily-checkered, heart-expanding view,
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.

These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power! Whom labor still attends, and sweat, and pain;

40

Yet the kind source of every gentle art,

And all the soft civility of life:

Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast,
Naked and helpless, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various seeds of art deep in the mind
Implanted, and profusely poured around
Materials infinite; but idle all.

Still unexerted, in th' unconscious breast,
Slept the lethargic powers; corruption still,
Voracious, swallowed what the liberal hand

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Of bounty scattered o'er the savage year:
And still the sad barbarian, roving, mixed
With beasts of prey; or for his acorn-meal
Fought the fierce tusky boar; a shivering wretch!
(Aghast and comfortless, when the bleak north,
With Winter charged, let the mixed tempest fly,
Hail, rain, and snow, and bitter-breathing frost
Then to the shelter of the hut he fled;
And the wild season, sordid, pined away.
For home he had not; home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty; where,
Supporting and supported, polished friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss.
But this the rugged savage never felt,
E'en desolate in crowds; and thus his days
Rolled heavy, dark, and unenjoyed along :
A waste of time! till Industry approached,
And roused him from his miserable sloth;
His faculties unfolded; pointed out
Where lavish Nature the directing hand
Of Art demanded; showed him how to raise
His feeble force by the mechanic powers,
To dig the mineral from the vaulted earth;
On what to turn the piercing rage of fire;
On what the torrent, and the gathered blast;
Gave the tall ancient forest to his axe;

Taught him to chip the wood, and hew the stone,

Till by degrees the finished fabric rose;

Tore from his limbs the blood-polluted fur,

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And wrapped them in the woolly vestment warm, 85

Or bright in glossy silk and flowing lawn;

With wholesome viands filled his table; poured

The generous glass around, inspired to wake
The life-refining soul of decent wit;

But still advancing bolder, led him on

Nor stopped at barren bare necessity:

To pomp, to pleasure, elegance, and grace;

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And, breathing high ambition through his soul,

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