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.
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,
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,
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,
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!
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,
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,
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,
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
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
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,
In wayward passions lost, and vain pursuits, This Infancy of Being, cannot prove The final issue of the works of Gon,
By boundless Love and perfect Wisdom formed, And ever rising with the rising mind.
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.
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
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,
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;
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
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,
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;
And, breathing high ambition through his soul,
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