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 every flower,
And every 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, and 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 keedless flies the window proves
A constant death; where, gloomily retir'd,
The villain spider lives, cunning, and fierce,
Mixture abhorr'd! Amid a mangled heap
Of carcases, in eager watch he sits,,
O'erlooking all his waving snares around.
Near the dire cell the dreadless wanderer oft
Passes, as oft the ruffian shows 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 fluttering wing
And shriller sound declare extreme distress,
And ask the helping hospitable hand.

[descend,

Resounds the living surface of the ground: Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum, To him who muses through the woods 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 numerous kinds Evading ev'n 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 steams, 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 picrces, sooths, 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 u'es 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 man, whose universal eye
Has swept at once th' unbounded scheme of things;
Mark'd their dependence so, and firm accord,
As with unfaltering accent to conclude
That this availeth nought? Has any scen
The mighty chain of beings, lessening.down
From Infinite Perfection to the brink
Of dreary nothing, desolate 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 couvoir d,
The quivering nations sport; till, tempest-wing'd,
Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day.
Ev'n so luxurious men, unheeding, pass
An idle summer life in fortune's shine,
A season's glitter! Thus they futter on
From toy to toy, from vanity to vice;
Till, blown away by Death, Oblivion comes
Behind, and strikes them from the book of life.

Now swarms the village o'er the jovial mead: The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil, Healthful and strong; full as the summer rose Blown by prevailing suns, the ruddy maid, Half naked, swelling on the sight, and all Her kindled graces, burning o'er her cheek. Ev'n stooping age is here: and infant-hands Trail the long rake, or, with the fragrant load O'ercharg'd, amid the kind oppression roll. Wide flies the tedded grain; all in a row Advancing broad, or wheeling round the field, They spread their breathing harvest to the Sun, That throws refreshful round a rural smell: Or, as they rake the green-appearing ground, And drive the dusky wave along the mead, The russet hay-cock rises thick behind, In order gay. While, heard from dale to dale, Waking the breeze, resounds the blended voice Of happy labour, love, and social glee.

Or rushing thence, in one diffusive band, They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog Compell'd, to where the mazy-running brook Forms a deep pool; this bank abrupt and high, And that fair spreading in a pebbled shore. Urg'd to the giddy brink, much is the toil, The clamour much, of men, and boys, and dogs, Ere the soft fearful people to the flood Commit their woolly sides. And oft the swaiu, On some impatient seizing, hurls them in ; Embolden'd then, nor hesitating more, Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing wave, And panting labour to the farthest shore. Repeated this, till deep the well-wash'd fleece Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt The trout is banish'd by the sordid stream; Heavy, and dripping, to the breezy brow

spread

Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray,
Inly disturb'd, and wondering what this wild
Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints
The country fill; and, toss'd from rock to rock,
Incessant bleatings run around the hills.
At last, of snowy white, the gather'd flocks
Are in the wattled pen innumerous press'd,
Head above head: and, rang'd in lusty rows,
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears.
The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores,
With all her gay drest maids attending round.
One, chief in gracious dignity enthron'd,
Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays
Her smiles, sweet-beaming, on her shepherd-king;
While the glad circle round them yield their souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.
Meantime, their joyous task goes on apace:
Some mingling stir the melted tar, and some,
Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side,
To stamp his master's cypher ready stand;
Others th' unwilling wether drag along ;
And, glorying in his might, the sturdy boy
Holds by the twisted horns th' indignant ram.
Behold where bound, and of its robe bereft,
By needy man, that all-depending lord,
How meek, how patient, the mild creature lies!
What softness in its melancholy face,
What dumb complaining innocence appears!
Fear not, ye gentle tribes, 'tis not the knife
Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you wav'd;
No, 'tis the tender swain's well-guided shears,
Who having now, to pay his annual care,
Borrow'd your fleece, to you a cumbrous load,
Will send you bounding to your hills again.

A simple scene! yet hence Britannia sees
Her solid grandeur rise: hence she commands
Th' exalted stores of every brighter clime,
The treasures of the Sun without his rage:
Hence, fervent all, with culture, toil, and arts,
Wide glows her land: her dreadful thunder hence
Rides o'er the waves sublime, and now, ev'n now,
Impending hangs o'er Gallia's humbled coast;
Hences rules the circling deep, and awes the world.
'Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the Sun
Darts on the head direct his forceful rays.
O'er Heaven and Earth, far as the ranging eye
Can sweep, a dazzling delage reigns; and all
From pole to pole is undistinguish'd blaze.
In vain the sight, dejected to the ground,
Stoops for relief; thence hot-ascending steams
And keen reflection pain. Deep to the root
Of vegetation parch'd, the cleaving fields
And slippery lawn an arid hue disclose,
Blast Fancy's bloom, and wither ev'n the soul.
Echo no more returns the cheerful sound

Of sharpening scythe: the mower sinking heaps
O'er him the humid hay, with flowers perfun'd ;
And scarce a chirping grass-hopper is heard
Through the dumb mead. Distressful Nature pants.
The very streams look languid from afar;
Or, through th' unshelter'd glade, impatient seem
To hurl into the covert of the grove.

All-conquering Heat, oh, intermit thy wrath!
And on my throbbing temples potent thus
Beam not so fierce! Incessant still you flow,
And still another fervent flood succeeds,
Pour'd on the bead profuse. In vain I sigh,
And restless turn, and look around for night;

Thrice happy he! who, on the sunless side
Of a romantic mountain, forest-crown'd,
Beneath the whole collected shade reclines:
Or in the gelid caverns, woodbine-wrought,
And fresh bedew'd with ever-spouting streams,
Sits coolly calm; while all the world without,
Unsatisfied and sick, tosses in noon:
Emblem instructive of the virtuous man,
Who keeps his temper'd mind serene and pure,
And every passion aptly harmoniz'd,
Amid a jarring world with vice inflam'd.

Welcome, ye shades! ye bowery thickets, hail!
Ye lofty pines! ye venerable oaks!
Ye ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep!
Delicious is your shelter to the soul,

As to the hunted hart the sallying spring,
Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides
Laves, as he floats along the herbag'd brink.
Cool, through the nerves, your pleasing comfort
glides;

The heart beats glad; the fresh-expanded eye
And ear resume their watch; the sinews knit ;
And life shoots swift through all the lighten'd limbs,
Around th' adjoining brook, that purls along
The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock,
Now scareely moving through a reedy pool,
Now starting to a sudden stream, and now
Gently diffus'd into a limpid plain ;

A various groupe the herds and Blocks compose,
Rural confusion! on the grassy bank
Some ruminating lie; while others stand
Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip
The circling surface. In the middle droops
The strong laborious ox, of honest front,
Which incompos'd he shakes; and from his sides
The troublous insects lashes with his tail,
Returning still. Amid his subjects safe,
Slumbers the monarch-swain; his careless arm
Thrown round his head, on downy moss sustain'd;
Here laid his scrip, with wholesome viands fill'd ;·
There, listening every noise, his watchful dog.

Light fly his slumbers, if perchance a flight
Of angry gad-flies, fasten on the herd;
That startling scatters from the shallow brook,
In search of lavish stream. Tossing the foam,
They scorn the keeper's voice, and scour the plain,
Through all the bright severity of noon;
While, from their labouring breasts, a hollow moan
Proceeding runs low-bellowing round the hills.

Oft in this season too the horse, provok'd, While his big sinews full of spirits swell, Trembling with vigour, in the heat of blood, Springs the high fence; and, o'er the field effus'd, Darts on the gloomy flood, with stedfast eye, And heart estrang'd to fear: his nervous chost, Luxuriant, and erect! the seat of strength! Bears down th' opposing stream: quenchless his He takes the river at redoubled draughts, (thirst; And with wide nostrils, snorting, skims the wave,

Still let me pierce into the midnight depth Of yonder grove, of wildest largest growth: That, forming high in air a woodland quire, Nods o'er the mount beneath. At every step, Solemn, and slow, the shadows blacker fall, And all is aweful listening gloom around.

These are the haunts of Meditation, these The scenes where ancient, bards th' inspiring breath,

Ecstatic, felt; and, from this world retir'd,

Convers'd with angels and immortal forms,
On gracious errands bent: to save the fall
Of Virtue struggling on the brink of Vice;
In waking whispers, and repeated dreams,
To hint pure thought, and warn the favour'd soul
For future trials fated to prepare ;

To prompt the poet, who devoted gives

His Muse to better themes; to soothe the pangs
Of dying worth, and from the patriot's breast
(Backward to mingle in detested war,
But foremost when engag'd) to turn the death;
And numberless such offices of love
Daily, and nightly, zealous to perform.

Shook sudden from the bosom of the sky,
A thousand shapes or glide athwart the dusk,
Or stalk majestic on. Deep-rous'd, I feel
A sacred terrour, a severe delight, [methinks,
Creep through my mortal frame; and thus,
A voice, than human more, th' abstracted ear
Of fancy strikes. "Be not of us afraid,
Poor kindred man! thy fellow-creatures, we
From the same Parent-Power our beings drew,
The same our Lord, and laws, and great pursuit.
Once some of us, like thee, through stormy life,
Toil'd, tempest-beaten, ere we could attain
This holy calm, this harmony of mind,
Where purity and peace immingle charms.
Then fear not us; but with responsive song,
Amid these dim recesses, undisturb'd
By noisy folly and discordant vice,
Of Nature sing with us, and Nature's God.
Here frequent, at the visionary hour,
When musing midnight reigns or silent noon,
Angelic harps are in full concert heard;
And voices chanting from the wood-crown'd hill,
The deepening dale, or inmost sylvan glade :
A privilege bestow'd by us, alone,
On Contemplation, or the hallow'd ear
Of poet, swelling to seraphic strain."

And art thou, Stanley, of that sacred band? Alas, for us too soon! Though rais'd above The reach of human pain, above the flight Of human joy; yet, with a mingled ray Of sadly-pleas'd remembrance, must thou feel A mother's love, a mother's tender woe: Who seeks thee still, in many a former scene; Secks thy fair form, thy lovely beaming eyes, Thy pleasing converse, by gay lively sense Inspir'd: where moral wisdom mildly shone, Without the toil of art; and virtue glow'd, In all her smiles, without forbidding pride. But, O thou best of parents! wipe thy tears; Or rather to Parental Nature pay The tears of grateful joy, who for a while Lent thee this younger self, this opening bloom Of thy enlighten'd mind and gentle worth. Believe the Muse: the wintery blast of Death Kills not the buds of virtue; no, they spread, Beneath the heavenly beam of brighter suns, Through endless ages, into higher powers.

Thus up the mount, in aëry vision rapt, I stray, regardless whither; till the sound Of a near fall of water every sense Wakes from the charm of thought: swift-shrinking I check my steps, and view the broken scene. [back, Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood Rolls fair, and placid; where collected all,

A young lady, who died at the age of eighteen, in the year 1738. See her epitaph in a subsequent page of this vol

In one impetuous torrent, down the steep
It thundering shoots, and shakes the country round.
At first, an azure sheet, it rushes broad;
Then whitening by degrees, as prone it falls,
And from the loud-resounding rocks below
Dash'd in a cloud of foam. it sends aloft

A hoary mist, and formas a ceaseless shower.
Nor can the tortur'd wave here find repose:
But, raging still amid the shaggy rocks,
Now flashes o'er the scatter'd fragments, now
Aslant the hollow channel rapid darts;
And, falling fast from gradual slope to slope,
With wild infracted course, and lessen'd roar,
It gains a safer bed, and steals, at last,
Along the mazes of the quiet vale.

Invited from the cliff, to whose dark brow
He clings, the steep-ascending eagle soars,
With upward pinions through the flood of day;
And, giving full his bosom to the blaze,
Gains on the Sun; while all the tuneful race,
Smit by afflictive noon, disorder'd droop,
Deep in the thicket; or, from bower to bower
Responsive, force an interrupted strain.
The stock-dove only through the forest cooes,
Mournfully boarse; oft ceasing from his plaint,
Short interval of weary woe! again
The sad idea of his murder'd mate,
Struck from his side by savage fowler's guile,
Across his fancy comes; and then resounds
A louder song of sorrow through the grove.
Beside the dewy border let me sit,
All in the freshness of the humid air;
There in that hollow'd rock, grotesque and wild,
An ample chair moss-lin'd, and over head
By flowering umbrage shaded: where the bee
Strays diligent, and with th' extracted balm
Of fragrant woodbine loads his little thigh.

Now, while I taste the sweetness of the shade, While Nature lies around deep-lull'd in Noon, Now come bold Fancy, spread a daring flight, And view the wonders of the torrid zone: Climes unrelenting! with whose rage compar'd, Yon blaze is feeble, and yon skies are cool,

See, how at once the bright effulgent Sun, Rising direct, swift chaces from the sky The short-liv'd twilight; and with ardent blaze Looks gaily fierce through all the dazzling air: He mounts his throne; but kind before him sends, Issuing from out the portals of the morn, The general breeze', to mitigate his fire, And breathe refreshment on a fainting world. Great are the scenes, with dreadful beauty crown'd And barbarous wealth, that see each circling year, Returning suns and double seasons1 pass: Rocks rich in gems, and mountains big with mines, That on the high equator ridgy rise, Whence many a bursting stream auriferous plays: Majestic woods, of every vigorous green, Stage above stage, high waving o'er the hills; Or to the far horizon wide diffus'd,

A boundless deep immensity of shade.

Which blows constantly between the tropics from the east, or the collateral points, the northeast and south-east: caused by the pressure of the rarefied air on that before it, according to the diurnal motion of the Sun from east to west.

In all climates between the tropics, the Sun, ai he passes and repasses in his annual motion, is twice a year vertical, which produces this effect.

Here lofty trees, to ancient song unknown,
The noble sons of potent heat and floods
Prone rushing from the clouds, rear high to Heaven
Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw
Meridian gloom. Here, in eternal prime,
Unnumber'd fruits of keen delicious taste
And vital spirit, drink amid the cliffs,

And burning sands that bank the shrubby vales,
Redoubled day, yet in their rugged coats
A friendly juice to cool its rage contain.

[maze,

Bear me, Pomona! to thy citron groves; To where the lemon and the piercing lime, With the deep orange, glowing through the green, Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclin'd Beneath the spreading tamarind that shakes, Fann'd by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit. Deep in the night the massy locust sheds, Quench iny hot limbs: or lead me through the Embowering endless, of the Indian fig; Or, thrown at gayer ease, on some fair brow, Let me behold, by breezy murmurs cool'd, Broad o'er my head the verdant cedar wave, And high palinetos lift their graceful shade. Or, stretch'd amid these orchards of the Sun, Give me to drain the cocoa's milky bowl, And from the palm to draw its freshening wine! More bounteous far than all the frantic juice Which Bacchus pours. Nor, on its slender twigs Low-bending, be the full pomegranate scorn'd, Nor, creeping through the woods, the gelid race Of berries. Oft in humble station dwells Unboastful worth, above fastidious pomp. Witness, thou best Anâna, thou the pride Of vegetable life, beyond whate'er The poets imag'd in the golden age: Quick let me strip thee of thy tufty coat, Spread thy ambrosial stores, and feast with Jove! From these the prospect varies. Plains immense Lie stretch'd below, interminable meads And vast savannahs, where the wandering eye, Unfixt, is in a verdant ocean lost. Another Flora there, of bolder hues, And richer sweets, beyond our garden's pride, Plays o'er the fields, and showers with sudden hand Exuberant Spring; for oft these vallies shift Their green-embroider'd robe to fiery brown, And swift to green again, as scorching suns, Or streaming dews and torrent rains, prevail.

Along these lonely regions, where retir'd,
From little scenes of art, great Nature dwells
In aweful solitude, and nought is scen
But the wild herds that own no master's stall,
Prodigious rivers roll their fattening seas;
On whose luxuriant herbage, half conceal'd,
Like a fall'n cedar, far diffus'd his train,
Cas'd in green scales, the crocodile extends.
The flood disparts: behold! in plaited mail,
Behemoth rears his head. Glanc'd from his side,
The darted steel in idle shivers flies :

He fearless walls the plain, or seeks the hills;
Where, as he crops his varied fare, the herds,
In widening circle round, forget their food,
And at the harmless stranger wondering gaze.
Peaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast
Their ample shade o'er Niger's yellow stream,
And where the Ganges rolls his sacred wave;
Or mid the central depth of blackening woods,
High-rais'd in solemn theatre around,

! The Hippopotamus, or river-horse.

Leans the huge elephant: wisest of brutes!
O truly wise! with gentle might endow'd,
Though powerful, not destructive! Here he sees
Revolving ages sweep the changeful earth,
And empires rise and fall; regardless he
Of what the never-resting race of men
Project: thrice happy! could he 'scape their guile,
Who mine, from cruel avarice, his steps;
Or with his towery grandeur swell their state,
The pride of kings! or else his strength pervert,
And bid him rage amid the mortal fray,
Astonish'd at the madness of mankind.

For Nature's

[band,

Wide o'er the winding umbrage of the floods,
Like vivid blossoms glowing from afar,
Thick swarm the brighter birds.
That with a sportive vanity has deck'd
The plumy nations, there her gayest hues
Profusely pours. But, if she bids them shine,
Array'd in all the beauteous beams of day,
Yet, frugal still, she humbles them in song'.
Nor envy we the gaudy robes they lent
Proud Montezuma's realm, whose legions cast
A boundless radiance waving on the Sun,
While Philomel is ours; while in our shades,
Through the soft silence of the listening night,
The sober-suited songstress trills her lay.

But come, my Muse, the desert-barrier burst,
A wild expanse of lifeless sand and sky:
And, swifter than the toiling caravan,
Shoot o'er the vale of Sennar; ardent climb.
The Nubian mountains, and the secret bounds
Of jealous Abyssinia boldly pierce.

Thou art no ruffian, who beneath the mask
Of social commerce com'st to rob their wealth;
No holy Fury thou, blaspheming Heaven,
With consecrated steel to stab their peace,
And through the land, yet red from civil wounds,
To spread the purple tyranny of Rome.
Thou, like the harmless bee, may'st freely range,
From mead to mead bright with exalted flowers,
From jasmine grove to grove, may'st wander gay,
Through palmy shades and aromatic woods,
That grace the plains, invest the peopled hills,
And up the more than Alpine mountains wave.
There on the breezy summit, spreading fair,
For many a league; or on stupendous rocks,
That from the sun-redoubling valley lift,
Cool to the middle air their lawny tops;
Where palaces, and fanes, and villas rise;
And gardens smile around, and cultur'd fields;
And fountains gush; and careless herds and locks
Securely stray; a world within itself,
Disdaining all assault: there let me draw
Ethereal soul, there drink reviving gales,
Profusely breathing from the spicy groves,
And vales of fragrance; there at distance hear
The roaring floods, and cataracts, that sweep
From disembowel'd Earth the virgin gold;
And o'er the varied landscape, restless, rove,
Fervent with life of every fairer kind:
A land of wonders! which the Sun still eyes
With ray direct, as of the lovely realm
Enamour'd, and delighting there to dwell.

How chang'd the scene! In blazing height of

noon,

The Sun, oppress'd, is plung'd in thickest gloom.

' In all the regions of the torrid zone, the birds, though more beautiful in their plumage, are observed to be less melodious than ours.