Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze, A whitening shower of vegetable down Amusive floats. The kind impartial care Of Nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year,
From field to field, the feathered seeds she wings, His folded flock secure, the shepherd home
Hies, merry-hearted; and by turns relieves
The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail : The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart, Unknowing what the joy-mixt anguish means, Sincerely loves, by that best language shewn Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds. Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height, And valley sunk, and unfrequented; where At fall of eve the fairy people throng,
In various game, and revelry, to pass
The summer-night, as village stories tell.
But far about they wander from the grave Of him, whom his ungentle fortune urged Against his own sad breast to lift the hand Of impious violence. The lonely tower
Is also shunned; whose mournful chambers hold, So night-struck Fancy dreams, the yelling ghost. Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge,
The glow worm lights his gem; and through the dark A moving radiance twinkies. Evening yields
The world to Night: not in her winter robe Of massy Stygian woof, but loose arrayed In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray, Glanced from the imperfect surfaces of things, Flings half an image on the straining eye;
While wavering woods, and villages, and streams, And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long-retained The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene, Uncertain, if beheld. Sudden to heaven Thence weary vision turns; where, leading soft The silent hours of love, with purest ray Sweet Venus shines; and from her genial rise, When day-light sickens till it springs afresh, Unrivalled reigns, the fairest lamp of night. As thus the effulgence tremulous I drink,
With cherished gaze, the lambent lightnings shoot Across the sky; or horizontal dart
In wondrous shapes; by fearful murmuring crowds Portentous deemed. Amid the radiant orbs, That more than deck, that animate the sky, The life-infusing suns of other worlds; Lo! from the dread immensity of space Returning with accelerated course, The rushing comet to the sun descends; And as he sinks below the shading earth, With awful train projected o'er the heavens, The guilty nations tremble. But, above
Those superstitious horrors that enslave The fond sequacious herd, to mystic faith
And blind amazement prone, the enlightened few, Whose god-like minds philosophy exalts, The glorious stranger hail. They feel a joy Divinely great; they in their powers exult, That wondrous force of thought, which, mounting, spurns This dusky spot, and measures all the sky; While, from his far excursion through the wilds
Of barren ether, faithful to his time,
They see the blazing wonder rise anew, In seeming terror clad, but kindly bent To work the will of all-sustaining LOVE: From his huge vapoury train perhaps to shake Reviving moisture on the numerous orbs, Through which his long ellipsis winds; perhaps To lend new fuel to declining suns,
To light up worlds, and feed the eternal fire. With thee, serene Philosophy, with thee, And thy bright garland, let me crown my song! Effusive source of evidence, and truth!
A lustre shedding o'er the ennobled mind, Stronger than summer-noon; and pure as that, Whose mild vibrations sooth the parted soul, New to the dawning of celestial day.
Hence thro' her nourished powers, enlarged by thee,
She springs aloft, with elevated pride,
Above the tangling mass of low desires,
That bind the fluttering crowd; and, angel-winged,
The heights of science and of virtue gains,
Where all is calm and clear; with Nature round,
Or in the starry regions, or the abyss,
To Reason's and to Fancy's eye displayed:
The First up-tracing, from the dreary void, The chain of causes and effects to HIM,
The world-producing ESSENCE, who alone Possesses being; while the Last receives The whole magnificence of heaven and earth, And every beauty, delicate or bold,
Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense,
Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.
Tutored by thee, hence Poetry exalts Her voice to apes; and informs the page.
With music, image, sentiment, and thought, Never to die! the treasure of mankind! Their highest honour, and their truest joy! Without thee what were unenlightened Man! A savage roaming thro' the woods and wilds, In quest of prey; and with th' unfashioned fur Rough-clad ; devoid of every finer art, And elegance of life. Nor happiness Domestic, mixed of tenderness and care, Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss,
Nor guardian law were his; nor various skill To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool Mechanic ; nor the heaven-conducted prow Of navigation bold, that fearless braves
The burning line, or dares the wintry pole Mother severe of infinite delights! Nothing, save rapine, indolence, and guile,
And woes on woes, a still-revolving train ! Whose horrid circle had made human life
Than non-existence worse: but, taught by thee, Ours are the plans of policy, and peace;
Swells out, and bears the inferior world along. Nor to this evanescent speck of earth
Poorly confined, the radiant tracts on high Are her exalted range; intent to gaze Creation through; and from that full complex
Of never ending wonders, to conceive
Of the SOLE BEING right, who "spoke the word,"
And Nature moved complete. With inward view Thence on the ideal kingdom swift she turns Her eye; and instant, at her powerful glance, The obedient phantoms vanish or appear; Compound, divide, and into order shift, Each to his rank, from plain perception up To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train: To reason then, deducing truth from truth; And notion quite abstract; where first begins The world of spirits, action all, and life Unfettered, and unmixt. But here the cloud, So wills ETERNAL PROVIDENCE, sits deep. Enough for us to know, that this dark state, In wayward passions lost, and vain pursuits, This infancy of Being, cannot prove
The final issue of the works of GOD,
By boundless Love and perfect Wisdom formed,
And ever rising with the rising mind!
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