By which the mighty process is maintained,
Who fleeps not, is not weary; in whose fight
Slow circling ages are as tranfient days;
Whose work is without labour; whose defigns
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts:

And whofe beneficence no charge exhausts.
Him blind antiquity profaned, not served,
With felf-taught rites, and under various names,
Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan,

And Flora, and Vertumnus; peopling earth
With tutelary goddeffes 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 wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows, Rules univerfal nature. Not a flower

But shows fome touch, in freckle, ftreak, or ftain,
Of his unrivalled pencil. He inspires

Their balmy odours, 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 sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds
· Of flavour or of fcent in fruit or flower,

Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade, that twinkles in the fun,
Prompts with remembrance of a prefent God.
His prefence, who made all fo fair, perceived
Makes all ftill fairer. As with him no scene
Is dreary, fo with him all seasons please.
Though winter had been none, had man been true,
And earth be punished for its tenant's fake,
Yet not in vengeance; as this finiling sky,
So foon fucceeding fuch an angry night,
And these diffolving fnows, and this clear stream
Recovering fast its liquid mufic, prove.

Who then, that has a mind well ftrung and tuned To contemplation, and within his reach A fcene fo friendly to his favourite task, Would wafte attention at the chequered board, His hoft of wooden warriors to and fro Marching and countermarching, with an eye As fixt as marble, with a forehead ridged And furrowed into ftorms, and with a hand Trembling, as if eternity were hung

In balance on his conduct of a pin?

Nor envies he aught more their idle sport,
Who pant with application mifapplied
To trivial toys, and, pushing ivory balls
Across a velvet level, feel a joy
Akin to rapture, when the bauble finds
Its deftined goal, of difficult access.

Nor deems he wifer him, who gives his noon
To mifs, the mercer's plague, from shop to shop
Wandering, and littering with unfolded filks
The polifhed counter, and approving none,
Or promifing with fmiles to call again.
Nor him, who by his vanity feduced,

And foothed into a dream that he difcerns
The difference of a Guido from a daub,
Frequents the crowded auction: ftationed there
As duly as the Langford of the show,
With glass at eye, and catalogue in hand,
And tongue accomplished in the fulfome cant
And pedantry, that coxcombs learn with eafe;
Oft as the price-deciding hammer falls
He notes it in his book, then raps his box,
Swears 'tis a bargain, rails at his hard fate
That he has let it pass-but never bids!

Here unmolefted, through whatever fign The fun proceeds, I wander. Neither mift, Nor freezing fky nor fultry, checking me, Nor ftranger intermeddling with my joy. Ev'n in the spring and play-time of the year, That calls the unwonted villager abroad With all her little ones, a sportive train, To gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prink their hair with daifies, or to pick A cheap but wholesome fallad from the brook, These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, Grown fo familiar with her frequent guest, Scarce fhuns me; and the ftock-dove unalarmed Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor fufpends His long love-ditty for my near approach. Drawn from his refuge in fome lonely elm, That age or injury has hollowed deep, Where, on his bed of wool and matted leaves, He has outslept the winter, ventures forth To frifk awhile, and bask in the warm fun, The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play: He fees me, and at once, fwift as a bird,

Afcends the neighbouring beech; there whisks his brush,

And perks his ears, and ftamps and cries aloud, With all the prettiness of feigned alarm,

And anger infignificantly fierce.

The heart is hard in nature, and unfit
For human fellowship, as being void
Of fympathy, and therefore dead alike

To love and friendship both, that is not pleased With fight of animals enjoying life,

Nor feels their happinefs augment his own.

The bounding fawn, that darts across the glade
When none purfues, through mere delight of heart,
And spirits buoyant with excefs of glee;

The horse as wanton, and almost as fleet,
That skims the spacious meadow at full speed,
Then ftops and fnorts, and throwing high his heels
Starts to the voluntary race again;

The very kine, that gambol at high noon,

The total herd receiving firft from one,

That leads the dance a fummons to be gay,
Though wild their ftrange vagaries, and uncouth
Their efforts, yet resolved with one confent
To give fuch act and utterance as they may
To ecftafy too big to be fuppreffed-