Who spake the word, and earth begun
And showed its beauties in the sun;
With pleasure I thy creatures view,
And would, with good affection too,
Good affection, sweetly free,
Loose from them, and move to thee.
O teach me due returns to give,
And to thy glory let me live ;
And then my days shall shine the more
Or pass more blessed than before.
T is an ancient house.
Four hundred years ago
Men dug its basements deep,
And roof'd it from the wind;
And held within its walls
The joyous marriage feast,
The christening and the dance-
Beneath the crumbling bridge,
And past the garden wall.
Four hundred years ago
They planted trees around,
To shield it from the sun;
And still those oaks and elms,
The patriarchs of the world,
Extend their sturdy boughs
To woo the summer breeze:
The old house ivy grown,
Red, green, and mossy gray,
Still lifts its gables quaint;
And in the evening sun
Its windows, as of yore,
Still gleam with ruddy light,
Reflected from the west.
WIFTLY from the mountain's brow,
Shadows, nursed by Night, retire;
And the peeping sunbeam, now
Paints with gold the village spire.
Philomel forsakes the thorn,
Plaintive where she prates at night; And the lark, to meet the Morn, Soars beyond the shepherd's sight.
From the low-roofed cottage ridge,
See the chattering swallow spring:
Darting through the one-arched bridge,
Quick she dips her dappled wing.
Now the pine-tree's waving top
Gently greets the Morning gale:
Kiddings now begin to crop
Daisies in the dewy dale.
From the balmy sweets, uncloyed,
(Restless till her task be done)
Now the busy bee's employed
Sipping dew before the sun.
Trickling through the creviced rock,
Where the limpid stream distils,
Sweet refreshment waits the flock
When 'tis sun-drove from the hills.
Colin, for the promised corn
(Ere the harvest hopes are ripe)
Anxious, hears the huntsman's horn,
Boldly sounding, drown his pipe.
Sweet, O sweet, the warbling throng,
On the white emblossomed spray!
Nature's universal song
Echoes to the rising day.
OW I gain the mountain's brow;
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene ;
But the gay, the open scene,
Does the face of Nature show
In all the hues of heaven's bow;
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.
Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly towering in the skies;
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires:
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads,
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks.
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