When on his heart the torrent softness pours.
Then wisdom prostrate hes, and fading fame
Dissolves in air away; while the fond soul,
Wrapt in gay visions of unreal bliss,
Still paints th' illusive form; the kindling grace;
Th' inticing smile; the modest-seeming eye,
Beneath whose beauteous beams, belying Heaven,
Lurk searchless cunning, cruelty, and death:
And still, false-warbling in his cheated ear,
Her siren voice, enchanting, draws him on
To guileful shores, and meads of fatal joy.
F'en present, in the very lap of love
Inglorious laid; while music flows around,
Perfumes, and oils, and wine, and wanton hours;
Amid the roses fierce Repentance rears
Her snaky crest: a quick returning pang
Shoots through the conscious heart; where honor
still,

And great design, against the' oppressive load
Of luxury, by fits, impatient heave.

But absent, what fantastic woes arous'd,
Rage in each thought, by restless musing fed,
Chill the warm cheek, and blast the bloom of life!
Neglected fortune flies; and sliding swift,
Prone into ruin, fall his scorn'd affairs.

'Tis nought but gloom around: the darken'd sun Loses his light. The rosy-bosom'd Spring To weeping Fancy pines; and yon bright arch, Contracted, bends into a dusky vault. All nature fades extinct; and she alone, Heard, felt, and seen, possesses every thought, Fills every sense, and pants in every vein. Books are but formal dulness, tedious friends; And sad amid the social band he sits, Lonely, and unattentive. From his tongue Th' unfinished period falls: while borne away On swelling thought, his wafted spirit flies To the vain bosom of his distant fair; And leaves the semblance of a lover, fix'd In melancholy site, with head declin'd, And love-dejected eyes. Sudden he starts, Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs To glimmering shades, and sympathetic glooms; Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling stream, Romantic, hangs: there through the pensive dusk Strays, in heart-thrilling meditation lost, Indulging all to love; or on the bank Thrown, amid drooping lilies, swells the breeze With sighs unceasing, and the brook with tears. Thus in soft anguish he consumes the day, Nor quits his deep retirement, till the Moon Peeps through the chambers of the fleecy east, Enlightened by degrees, and in her train Leads on the gentle Hours; then forth he walks, Beneath the trembling languish of her beam, With soften'd soul, and woos the bird of eve To mingle woes with his or while the world And all the sons of Care lie hush'd in sleep, Associates with the midnight shadows drear; And, sighing to the lonely taper, pours His idly-tortur'd heart into the page, Meant for the moving messenger of love: Where rapture burns on rapture, every line With rising frenzy fir'd. But if on bed Delirious flung, sleep from his pillow flies; All night he tosses, nor the balmy power In any posture finds; till the grey Morn Lifts her pale lustre on the paler wretch, Exanimate by love; and then perhaps Exhausted Nature sinks a while to rest, Still interrupted by distracted dreams, That o'er the sick imagination rise,

And in black colours paint the mimic scene.

Oft with th' enchantress of his soul he talks;
Sometimes in crowds distress'd; or if retir'd
To secret-winding flower-enwoven bowers,
Far from the dull impertinence of man;
Just as he, credulous, his endless cares
Begins to lose in blind oblivious love,
Snatch'd from her yielded hand, he knows not how,
Through forests huge, and long untravell'd heaths
With desolation brown, he wanders waste,

In night and tempest wrap'd; or shrinks aghast,
Back, from the bending precipice; or wades
The turbid stream below, and strives to reach
The farther shore; where succourless, and sad,
She with extended arms his aid implores;
But strives in vain: borne by the outrageous flood
To distance down, he rides the ridgy wave,
Or whelm'd beneath the boiling eddy sinks.
These are the charming agonies of love,
Whose misery delights. But through the heart
Should jealousy its venom once diffuse,
'Tis then delightful misery no more,
But agony unmix'd, incessant gall,
Corroding every thought, and blasting all
Love's paradise. Ye fairy prospects, then,
Ye beds of roses, and ye bowers of joy,
Farewell! ye gleamings of departed peace,
Shine out your last! the yellow-tinging plague
Internal vision taints, and in a night
Of livid gloom imagination wraps.

Ah then, instead of love-enliven❜d cheeks,
Of sunny features, and of ardent eyes
With flowing rapture bright, dark looks succeed,
Suffus'd and glaring with untender fire;
A clouded aspect, and a burning cheek,
Where the whole poison'd soul, malignant, sits,
And frightens love away. Ten thousand fears
Invented wild, ten thousand frantic views
Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms
For which he melts in fondness, eat him up
With fervent anguish, and consuming rage,
In vain reproaches lend their idle aid,
Deceitful pride and resolution frail,
Giving false peace a moment. Fancy pours,
Afresh, her beauties on his busy thought.
Her first endearments twining round the soul,
With all the witchcraft of ensnaring love.
Straight the fierce storm involves his mind anew,
Flames through the nerves, and boils along the veins;
While anxious doubt distracts the tortur'd heart:
For ev'n the sad assurance of his fears

Were ease to what he feels. Thus the warm youth,
Whom love deludes into his thorny wilds,
Through flowery tempting paths, or leads a life.
Of fever'd rapture, or of cruel care ;
His brightest flames extinguish'd all, and all
His lively moments, running down to waste.
But happy they! the happiest of their kind!
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate,
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.
'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace; but harmony itself,
Attuning all their passions into love:
Where friendship full-exèrts her softest power,
Perfect esteem enliven'd by desire
Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence: for nought but love
Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
Let him, ungenerous, who, alone intent
To bless himself, from sordid parents buys
The loathing virgin, in eternal care,
Well-merited, consume his nights and days;

Let barbarous nations, whose inhuman love
Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel;
Let eastern tyrants from the light of Heaven
Seclude their bosom slaves, meanly possess'd
Of a mere lifeless, violated form:

While those whom love cements in holy faith,
And equal transport, free as Nature live,
Disdaining fear. What is the world to them?
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all?
Who in each other clasp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish;
Something than beauty dearer, should they look
Or on the mind, or mind-illumin❜d face;
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love,
The richest bounty of indulgent Heaven.
Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human blossom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shews some new charm,
The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,

To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe th' enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
Oh speak the joy! ye, whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while you look around,
And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All various Nature pressing on the heart >
An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease, and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven,
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love;
And thus their moments fly. The Seasons thus,
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy; and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads:
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild;
When, after the long vernal day of life,
Enamour'd more, as more remembrance swells
With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they sink in social sleep;
Together freed, their gentle spirits fly

To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.

A woodland retreat.

A cataract, and rude

FROM brightening fields of ether fair disclos'd,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,

In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth :
He comes attended by the sultry hours,

And ever-fanning breezes on his way;

While, from his ardent look, the turning Spring
Averts his blushful face, and earth and skies,
All-smiling to his hot dominion leaves.

Hence let me haste into the mid-wood shade,
Where scarce a sun-beam wanders through the gloom:
And on the dark-green grass, beside the brink
Of haunted stream, that by the roots of oak
Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large,
And sing the glories of the circling year.
Come, Inspiration! from thy hermit-seat
By mortal seldom found: may Faney dare
From thy fix'd serious eye, and raptur'd glance
Shot on surrounding heaven, to steal one look
Creative of the Poet, every power
Exalting to an ecstacy of soul.

And thou, my youthful Muse's early friend,
In whom the human graces all unite :
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart;
Genius and wisdom; the gay social sense,
By decency chastis'd; goodness and wit,
In seldom meeting harmony combin❜d;

Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal
For Britain's glory, Liberty and Man:

O Dodington! attend my rural song,
Stoop to my theme, inspirit ev'ry line,
And teach me to deserve thy just applause.
With what an awful world-revolving pow'r
Were first the unwieldy planets launch'd along
Th' illimitable void! thus to remain,
Amid the flux of many thousand years,
That oft has swept the toiling race of men,
And all their labour'd monuments, away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless in their course;
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day,
And of the seasons ever stealing round,
Minutely faithful: such th' all-perfect Hand!
That pois'd, impels, and rules the steady whole.
When now no more th' alternate Twins are fir'd,
And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the night;
And soon observant of approaching day,
The meek-ey'd Morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east ;
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow;
And, from before the lustre of her face,
White break the clouds away. With quicken'd step,
Brown Night retires; young Day pours în apace,

And opens all the lawny prospects wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top,
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine:
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps, awkward: while along the forest glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes
The native voice of undissembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
Rous'd by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves
His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells ;
And from the crowded fold, in order drives
His flock to taste the verdure of the morn.
Falsely luxurious, will not man awake,
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,
To meditation due and sacred song!

For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life:
Total extinction of th' enlighten'd soul !

Or else to fev'rish vanity alive,

Wilder'd, and tossing through distemper'd dreams!
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than Nature craves; when every muse
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly-devious morning walk?

But yonder comes the powerful King of Day,
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow,
Illum'd with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo! now, apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colour'd air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad;

And sheds the shining day, that burnish'd plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams
High-gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer Light!
Of all material beings first, and best!
Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe !
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun;
Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen
Shines out thy Maker! may I sing of thee?
'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force,
As with a chain indissoluble bound,
Thy system rolls entire; from the far bourn
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round
Of thirty years to Mercury, whose disk
Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,
Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.

Informer of the planetary train !

Without whose quick'ning glance their cumbrous orbs
Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead,
And not, as now, the green abodes of life!
How many forms of beings wait on thee;
Inhaling spirit; from the unfetter'd mind,
By thee sublim'd, down to the daily race,
The mixing myriads of thy setting beam.

The vegetable world is also thine,
Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede
That waits thy throne, as through thy vast domain,
Annual, along the bright ecliptic road,
In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime.
Meantime, the expecting nations, circling gay
With all the various tribes of foodful earth,
Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up

A common hymn: while round thy beaming car,
High seen, the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance
Harmonious knit the rosy-finger'd Hours,
The Zephyrs floating loose, the timely Rains,
Of bloom ethereal the light-footed Dews,
And soften'd into joy the surly Storms.
These, in successive turn, with lavish hand,

Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower,
Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch,
From land to land is flush'd the vernal year.

Nor to the surface of enliven❜d earth,
Graceful with hills and dales, and leafy woods,
Her liberal tresses, is thy force confin'd;
But, to the bowell'd cavern darting deep,
The mineral kinds confess thy mighty power.
Effulgent, hence, the veiny marble shines;
Hence Labour draws his tools, hence burnish'd War
Gleams on the day: the nobler works of Peace
Hence bless mankind, and generous Commerce binds
The round of nations in a golden chain.

The unfruitful rock itself, impregn'd by thee,

In dark retirement forms the lucid stone.
The lively Diamond drinks thy purest rays,
Collected light, compact; that, polish'd bright,
And all its native lustre let abroad,
Dares, as it sparkles on the fair one's breast,
With vain ambition emulate her eyes.
At thee the Ruby lights its deepening glow,
And with a waving radiance inward flames;
From thee the Sapphire, solid ether, takes
Its hue cerulean; and of evening tinct,
The purple-streaming Amethyst is thine.
With thy own smile the yellow Topaz burns;
Nor deeper verdure dyes the robes of Spring,
When first she gives it to the southern gale,
Than the green Emerald shews. But all combin'd
Thick through the whitening Opal play thy beams;
Or, flying several from its surface, form
A trembling variance of revolving hues,
As the site varies in the gazer's hand.

The very dead creation, from thy touch
Assumes a mimic life. By thee refin'd,
In brighter mazes the reluctant stream
Plays o'er the mead. The precipice abrupt,
Projecting horror on the blacken'd flood,
Softens at thy return. The desert joys
Wildly through all his melancholy bounds,
Rude ruins glitter; and the briny deep,
Seen from some pointed promontory's top,
Far to the blue horizon's utmost verge,
Restless reflects a floating gleam. But this,
And all the much-transported Muse can sing,
Are to thy beauty, dignity, and use,
Unequal far: great delegated source
Of light, and life, and grace, and joy below!
How shall I then attempt to sing of Him
Who, Light Himself, in uncreated light
Invested deep, dwells awfully retir'd
From mortal eye, or angel's purer ken?
Whose single smile has, from the first of time,
Fill'd overflowing, all those lamps of heaven,
That beam for ever through the boundless sky :
But, should he hide his face, the astonish'd sun,
And all the extinguish'd stars, would loos'ning reel
Wide from their spheres, and Chaos come again.
And yet was every faultering tongue of Man,
Almighty Father! silent in thy praise,
Thy works themselves would raise a general voice;
Even in the depths of solitary woods,

By human foot untrod, proclaim thy power,
And to the quire celestial Thee resound,
The eternal cause, support, and end of all!
To me be Nature's volume, broad display'd;
And to peruse its all-instructing page,
Or, haply catching inspiration thence,
Some easy passage, raptur'd, to translate,
My sole delight; as through the falling glooms
Pensive I stray, or with the rising dawn
On Fancy's eagle wing excursive soar.

Now, flaming up the heavens, the potent sun
Melts into limpid air, the high-rais'd clouds,

And morning fogs, that hover'd round the hills
In party colour'd bands; till wide unveil'd
The face of Nature shines, from where earth seems,
Far-stretch'd around, to meet the bending sphere.

Half in a blush of clustering roses lost,
Dew-dropping Coolness to the shade retires;
There, on the verdant turf, or flowery bed,
By gelid founts and careless rills to muse;
While tyrant Heat, dispreading through the sky,
With rapid sway, his burning influence darts
On man, and beast, and herb, and tepid stream.
Who can unpitying see the flow'ry race,
Shed by the morn, their new-flush'd bloom resign,
Before the parching beam? So fade the fair,
When fevers revel through their azure veins.
But one, the lofty follower of the sun,
Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves,
Drooping all night: and, when he warm returns,
Points her enamour'd bosom to his ray.

Home, from his morning task, the swain retreats;
His flock before him stepping to the fold:
While the full-udder'd mother lows around
The cheerful cottage, then expecting food,
The food of innocence and health! The daw,
The rook, and magpie, to the grey-grown oaks
That the calm village in their verdant arms,
Sheltering, embrace, direct their lazy flight;
Where on the mingling boughs they sit embower'd,
All the hot noon, till cooler hours arise.
Faint, underneath, the household fowls convene;
And in a corner of the buzzing shade,
The house-dog, with the vacant grey-hound lies
Out-stretch'd and sleepy. In his slumbers one
Attacks the nightly thief, and one exults
O'er hill and dale; till, waken'd by the wasp,
They starting snap. Nor shall the Muse disdain
To let the little noisy summer-race

Live in her lay, and flutter through her song;
Not mean though simple; to the sun ally'd,
From him they draw their animating fire.

Wak'd by his warmer ray, the reptile young
Come wing'd abroad; by the light air upborne,
Lighter, and full of soul. From every chink,
And secret corner, where they slept away
The wintry storms; or rising from their tombs,
To higher life; by myriads, forth at once,
Swarming they pour; of all the vary'd hues
Their beauty-beaming parent can disclose.

Ten thousand forms! ten thousand different tribes
People the blaze. To sunny waters some
By fatal instinct fly; where on the pool
They, sportive, wheel; or sailing down the stream,
Are snatch'd immediate by the quick-ey'd trout,
Or darting salmon. Through the green-wood glade
Some love to stray; there lodg'd, amus'd, and fed
In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make
The meads their choice, and visit ev'ry flow'r,
And ev'ry latent herb: for the sweet task,
To propagate their kinds, and where to wrap,
In what soft beds, their young yet undisclos'd,
Employs their tender care. Some to the house,
The fold, the dairy, hungry, bend their flight;
Sip round the pail, or taste the curdling cheese :
Oft, inadvertent, from the milky stream
They meet their fate; or weltering in the bowl,
With powerless wings around them wrapt, expire.
But chief to heedless flies the window
A constant death; where gloomily retir'd,
The villain spider lives, cunning and fierce,
Mixture abhorr'd! Amid a mangled heap
Of carcasses, in eager watch he sits,
O'erlooking all his waving snares around.
Near the dire cell the dreadless wanderer oft

proves

Passes; as oft the ruffian shews his front.
The prey at last ensnar'd, he dreadful darts,
With rapid glide, along the leaning line;
And, fixing in the wretch his cruel fangs,
Strikes backward grimly pleas'd; the flutt'ring wing
And shriller sound declare extreme distress,
And ask the helping hospitable hand.

Resounds the living surface of the ground:
Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum,

To him who muses through the wood at noon:
Or drowsy shepherd as he lies reclin❜d,
With half-shut eyes, beneath the floating shade
Of willows grey, close-crowding o'er the brook.
Gradual, from these what num'rous kinds descend,
Evading e'en the microscopic eye!

Full Nature swarms with life: one wondrous mass
Of animals, or atoms organiz'd

Waiting the vital breath, when Parent Heaven
Shall bid his spirit blow. The hoary fen,
In putrid streams, emits the living cloud
Of pestilence. Through subterranean cells,
Where searching sun-beams scarce can find a way,
Earth animated heaves. The flowery leaf
Wants not its soft inhabitants. Secure
Within its winding citadel the stone
Holds multitudes. But chief the forest boughs,
That dance unnumber'd to the playful breeze,
The downy orchard, and the melting pulp
Of mellow fruit, the nameless nations feed
Of evanescent insects. Where the pool
Stands mantled o'er with green, invisible
Amid the floating verdure, millions stray.
Each liquid too, whether it pierces, soothes,
Inflames, refreshes, or exalts the taste,
With various forms abounds. Nor is the stream
Of purest crystal, nor the lucid air,
Though one transparent vacancy it seems,
Void of their unseen people. These conceal'd
By the kind art of forming Heaven, escape
The grosser eye of man: for, if the worlds
In worlds enclos'd should on his senses burst,
From cates ambrosial, and the nectar'd bowl,
He would abhorrent turn; and in dead night,
When silence sleeps o'er all, be stunn'd with noise.
Let no presuming impious railer tax
Creative Wisdom, as if aught was form'd
In vain, or not for admirable ends.
Shall little haughty Ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?
As if upon a full-proportion'd dome,
On swelling columns heav'd, the pride of art,
A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads
An inch around, with blind presumption bold,
Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.
And lives the inan, whose universal eye
Has swept at once th' unbounded scheme of things;
Mark'd their dependance so, and firm accord,
As with unfaultering accent to conclude
That this availeth nought? Has any seen
The mighty chain of beings, lessening down
From infinite perfection to the brink
Of dreary nothing, desolaté abyss !
From which astonish'd thought, recoiling, turns?
Till then, alone let zealous praise ascend,
And hymns of holy wonder, to that Power,
Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds,
As on our smiling eyes his servant-sun.

Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways, Upward, and downward, thwarting, and convolv'd, The quivering nations sport; till tempest-wing'd, Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day. E'en so luxurious men unheeding pass,

Ꭰ