Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds
Of error, leads them by a tune entranc'd.
While floth feduces more, too weak to bear
The unfupportable fatigue of thought,
And fwallowing therefore, without paufe or choice,
The total grift unfifted, hufks and all.
But trees and rivulets, whofe rapid course
Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer,
And fheep-walks populous with bleating lambs,
And lanes, in which the primrose, ere her time,
Peeps though the mofs that cloaths the hawthorn root,
Deceive no ftudent. Wisdom there, and truth,
Not fhy as in the world, and to be won,
By flow folicitation, feize at once

The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.

What prodigies can pow'r divine perform
More grand, than it produces year by year,
And all in fight of inattentive man?
Familiar with th' effect, we flight the cause,
And in the conftancy of nature's courfe,
The regular return of genial months,
And renovation of a faded world,

See nought to wonder at. Should God again,
As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race
Of the undeviating and punctual fun,
How would the world admire! but fpeaks it lefs
An agency divine, to make him know

His moment when to fink, and when to rife,
Age after
age, than to arreft his course?
X 2

All

All we behold is miracle, but feen
So duly, all is miracle in vain.

Where now the vital energy that mov'd,

While fummer was, that pure and fubtle lymph,
Through th' imperceptible mæand'ring veins
Of leaf and flow'r? It fleeps; and th' icy touch
Of unprolific winter, has imprefs'd

A cold ftagnation on th' inteftine tide.

But let the months go round, a few short months,
And all shall be restor❜d. These naked fhoots,
Barren as lances, among which the wind
Makes wintry mufic, fighing as it goes,
Shall put their graceful foliage on again,
And more afpiring, and with ampler fpread,
Shall boaft new charms, and more than they have loft.
Then, each in its peculiar honors clad,
Shall publish, even to the diftant eye,
Its family and tribe. Laburnum rich
In ftreaming gold; fyringa iv'ry pure,
The fcented, and the fcentlefs rofe; this red,
And of an humbler growth, the * other tall,
And growing up. into the darkest gloom
Of neigh'bring cyprefs, or more fable yew,
Her filver globes, light as the foamy furf,
That the wind fevers from the broken wave.
The lilac, various in array, now white,
Now fanguine, and her beauteous head now set
With purple fpikes pyramidial, as if
Studious of ornament, yet unrefolv'd

The Guelder-rofe

Which

Which hue the most approv'd, she chose them all.
Copious of flow'rs the woodbine, pale and wan,
But well compenfating their fickly looks,
With never-cloying odours, early and late.
Hypericum all bloom, fo thick a swarm
Of flow'rs, like flies, cloathing her flender rods,
That scarce a leaf appears. Mezerion too,
Though leaflefs, well attir'd, and thick befet
With bluthing wreaths investing ev'ry spray.
Althea, with the purple eye, the broom,
Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloy'd,
Her bloffoms, and luxuriant above all,

The jafmine, throwing wide her elegant fweets,
The deep dark green, of whofe unvarnish'd leaf
Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more,
The bright profufion of her scatter'd ftars.-
These have been, and these shall be in their day,
And all this uniform uncolour'd scene
Shall be difmantled of its fleecy load,
And flush into variety again.

From dearth to plenty, and from death to life,

Is Nature's progrefs, when the lectures man

In heav'nly truth; evincing, as the makes

The grand tranfition, that there lives, and works,

A foul in all things, and that foul is God.
The beauties of the wilderness are his,

That make fo gay the folitary place,

Where no eye fees them. And the fairer forms,
That cultivation glories in, are his.

He fets the bright proceffion on its way.

And

And marshals all the order of the year.

He marks the bounds which winter may not pass,
And blunts his pointed fury. In its cafe,
Ruffet and rude, folds up the tender germ
Uninjur'd, with inimitable art,

And.ere one flow'ry season fades and dies,
Defigns the blooming wonders of the next.

Some fay, that in the origin of things,
When all creation ftarted into birth,
The infant elements receiv'd a law,

From which they fwerve not fince. That under force
Of that controuling ordinance they move,
And need not his immediate hand, who firft
Prefcrib'd their courfe, to regulate it now.
Thus dream they, and contrive to fave a God
The encumbrance of his own concerns, and spare
The great Artificer of all that moves
The ftrefs of a continual act, the pain
Of unremitted vigilance and care,

As too laborious and fevere a task.

So man,
the moth, is not afraid, it seems,
To fpan Omnipotence, and measure might
That knows no measure, by the fcanty rule
And ftandard of his own, that is to-day,
And is not, ere to-morrow's fun go down.
But how should matter occupy a charge
Dull as it is, and fatisfy a law
So vaft in its demands, unless impell'd
To ceafelefs fervice, by a ceafeless force,

And

And under preffure of fome confcious caufe?
The Lord of all, himself through all diffus'd,
Suftains, and is the life of all that lives.
Nature is but a name for an effect,

Whofe caufe is God. He feeds the fecret fire,
By which the mighty process is maintain'd,
Who fleeps not, is not weary; in whose fight,
Slow-circling ages are as tranfient days;
Whofe work is without labor, whofe defigns
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts,
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.
Him blind antiquity profan'd, not ferv'd,
With felf-taught rites, and under various names,
Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan,

And Flora, and Vertumnus; peopling earth,
With tutelary godeffes and gods

That were not, and commending, as they would,
To each fome province, garden, field, or grove.
But all are under one. One fpirit-His,

Who bore the platted thorns, with bleeding brows,
Rules universal nature. Not a flow'r,

But fhows fome touch in freckle, ftreak, or ftain,
Of his unrivall'd pencil. He infpires

Their balmy odors, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes
In grains, as countless as the fea-fide fands,
The forms with which he fprinkles all the earth.
Happy, who walks with him! whom, what he finds
Of flavour, or of scent, in fruit or flow'r,

Or what he views of beautiful or grand

In