Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

Admits me to a fhare; the guiltless eye

Commits no wrong, nor waftes what it enjoys.
Refreshing change! where now the blazing fun?
By fhort tranfition we have loft his glare,
And stepped at once into a cooler clime.
Ye fallen avenues! once more I mourn
Your fate unmerited, once more rejoice
That yet a remnant of your race survives.
How airy and how light the graceful arch,
Yet awful as the confecrated roof
Re-echoing pious anthems! while beneath
The chequered earth feems reftlefs as a flood
Brushed by the wind. So fportive is the light
Shot through the boughs, it dances as they dance,
Shadow and funshine intermingling quick,

And darkening and enlightening, as the leaves
Play wanton, every moment, every spot.

And now,

with nerves new-braced and spirits cheered,

We tread the wilderness, whose well-rolled walks, With curvature of flow and easy sweep

Deception innocent-give ample space

To narrow bounds. The grove receives us next;

Between the upright fhafts of whose tall elms
We may difcern the thresher at his task.
Thump after thump refounds the constant flail,
That feems to fwing uncertain, and yet falls
Full on the destined ear. Wide flies the chaff,
The ruftling ftraw fends up a frequent mist
Of atoms, sparkling in the noon day beam.
Come hither, ye that press your beds of down,
And fleep not; fee him fweating over his bread
Before he eats it-Tis the primal curse,
But foftened into mercy; made the pledge
Of cheerful days, and nights without a groan.

By ceafeless action all that is fubfifts. Conftant rotation of the unwearied wheel That nature rides upon, maintains her health, Her beauty, her fertility. She dreads

An instant's pause, and lives but while fhe moves. Its own revolvency upholds the world.

Winds from all quarters agitate the air,

And fit the limpid element for use,

Elfe noxious: oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams, All feel the freshening impulse, and are cleansed By restless undulation: even the oak

[blocks in formation]

Thrives by the rude concuffion of the storm:
He seems indeed indignant, and to feel
The impreffion of the blaft with proud disdain,
Frowning, as if in his unconscious arm

He held the thunder: but the monarch owes
His firm ftability to what he fcorns,

More fixt below, the more disturbed above.

The law, by which all creatures else are bound, Binds man the lord of all.

Himself derives

No mean advantage from a kindred cause,
From ftrenuous toil his hours of sweetest ease.
The fedentary stretch their lazy length

When custom bids, but no refreshment find,
For none they need: the languid eye, the cheek
Deferted of its bloom, the flaccid, fhrunk,
And withered muscle, and the vapid foul,
Reproach their owner with that love of rest,
To which he forfeits even the reft he loves.
Not fuch the alert and active. Measure life
By its true worth, the comforts it affords,
And their's alone feems worthy of the name.
Good health, and, its affociate in the most,
Good temper; spirits prompt to undertake,
And not foon spent, though in an arduous task;

The powers of fancy and ftrong thought are their's;
Even age itself seems privileged in them,
With clear exemption from its own defects.
A fparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front
The veteran shows, and, gracing a gray beard
With youthful fmiles, defcends toward the grave
Sprightly, and old almost without decay.

Like a coy maiden, ease, when courted most,
Fartheft retires-an idol, at whose shrine
Who ofteneft facrifice are favoured leaft.

The love of Nature, and the scenes fhe draws,
Is Nature's dictate. Strange! there fhould be found,
Who, felf-imprisoned in their proud faloons,
Renounce the odours of the open field
For the unfcented fictions of the loom;
Who, fatisfied with only pencilled scenes,
Prefer to the performance of a God

The inferior wonders of an artift's hand!
Lovely indeed the mimic works of art;
But Nature's works far lovelier. I admire,
None more admires the painter's magic skill,
Who shows me that which I fhall never fee,
Conveys a diftant country into mine,

And throws Italian light on English walls:

But imitative ftrokes can do no more

Than please the eye-fweet Nature's every fenfe.
The air falubrious of her lofty hills,

The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales,
And mufic of her woods-no works of man
May rival thefe; thefe all befpeak a power
Peculiar, and exclufively her own.
Beneath the open fky fhe spreads the feaft;
'Tis free to all-'tis every day renewed;
Who fcorns it ftarves deservedly at home.
He does not fcorn it, who, imprisoned long
In fome unwholefome dungeon, and a prey
To fallow fickness, which the vapours, dank
And clammy, of his dark abode have bred,
Escapes at last to liberty and light:

His cheek recovers foon its healthful hue;
His eye relumines its extinguifhed fires;
He walks, he leaps, he runs-is winged with joy,
And riots in the fweets of every breeze.

He does not fcorn it, who has long endured

A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs,

Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflamed

With acrid falts; his very heart athir

« AnteriorContinuar »