And all this uniform uncolour'd scene
Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load,
And flush into variety again.

From dearth to plenty, and from death to life,
Is Nature's progress, when she lectures man
In heavenly truth; evincing, as she makes
The grand transition, that there lives and works
A soul in all things, and that soul is God.
The beauties of the wilderness are his,
That makes so gay the solitary place,

Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms,
That cultivation glories in, are his.

He sets the bright procession on its way,
And marshals all the order of the year;

He marks the bounds which winter may not pass,
And blunts his pointed fury; in its case,
Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ,
Uninjured, with inimitable art;

And ere one flowery season fades and dies,
Designs the blooming wonders of the next.
Some say that in the origin of things,
When all creation started into birth,

The infant elements received a law

From which they swerve not since that under force
Of that controlling ordinance they move,

And need not His immediate hand, who first
Prescribed their course, to regulate it now.
Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God
The encumbrance of his own concerns, and spare
The great Artificer of all that moves
The stress of a continual act, the pain
Of unremitted vigilance and care,
As too laborious and severe a task.
So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems,
To span Omnipotence, and measure might
That knows no measure, by the scanty rule
And standard of his own, that is to-day,
And is not ere to-morrow's sun go down.
But how should matter occupy a charge,
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law

So vast in its demands, unless impell'd

To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force,
And under pressure of some conscious cause?
The Lord of all, himself through all diffused,
Sustains, and is the life of all that lives.
Nature is but a name for an effect,

Whose cause is God. He feeds the sacred fire
By which the mighty process is maintain'd,
Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight
Slow circling ages are as transient days;
Whose work is without labour; whose designs
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts;
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.
Him blind antiquity profaned, not served,
With self-taught rites, and under various names,
Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan,
And Flora, and Vertumnus; peopling earth
With tutelary goddesses and gods,

That were not; and commending as they would
To each some province, garden, field, or grove.
But all are under one. One spirit- His

Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows, Rules universal Nature. Not a flower

But shews some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain,
Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires

Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes
In grains as countless as the seaside sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds
Of flavour or of scent 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 sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a present God.
His presence, who made all so fair, perceived,
Makes all still fairer. As with him no scene
Is dreary, so with him all seasons please.
Though winter had been none, had man been true,
And earth be punish'd for its tenant's sake,
Yet not in vengeance; as this smiling sky,
So soon succeeding such an angry night,

And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream Recovering fast its liquid music, prove.

Who, then, that has a mind well strung and tuned
To contemplation, and within his reach
A scene so friendly to his favourite task,
Would waste attention at the chequer'd board,
His host of wooden warriors to and fro
Marching and countermarching, with an eye
As fix'd as marble, with a forehead ridged
And furrow'd into storms, 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 misapplied
To trivial toys, and, pushing ivory balls
Across a velvet level, feel a joy

Akin to rapture, when the bauble finds
Its destined goal, of difficult access.

Nor deems he wiser him who gives his noon
To Miss, the mercer's plague, from shop to shop
Wandering, and littering with unfolded silks
The polish'd counter, and approving none,
Or promising with smiles to call again.
Nor him who, by his vanity seduced,
And soothed into a dream that he discerns
The difference of a Guido from a daub,
Frequents the crowded auction: station'd there
As duly as the Langford of the show,

*

With glass at eye, and catalogue in hand,
And tongue accomplish'd in the fulsome cant
And pedantry that coxcombs learn with ease;
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 unmolested, through whatever sign The sun proceeds, I wander. Neither mist, Nor freezing sky nor sultry, checking me, Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy.

* A famous auctioneer in articles of vertu.

Even in the spring and playtime of the year,
That calls the unwonted villager abroad
With all her little ones, a sportive train,
To gather kingcups in the yellow mead,
And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick
A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook,
These shades are all my own. The timorous hare,
Grown so familiar with her frequent guest,
Scarce shuns me; and the stockdove, unalarm'd,
Sits cooing in the pine tree, nor suspends
His long love-ditty for my near approach.
Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm,
That age or injury has hollow'd deep,
Where, on his bed of wool and matted leaves,
He has outslept the winter, ventures forth
To frisk a while, and bask in the warm sun,
The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play;
He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird,

Ascends the neighbouring beech; there whisks his brush,
And perks his ears, and stamps, and cries aloud,
With all the prettiness of feign'd alarm,

And anger insignificantly fierce.

The heart is hard in nature, and unfit

For human fellowship, as being void
Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike

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

Nor feels their happiness augment his own.

The bounding fawn, that darts across the glade

When none pursues, through mere delight of heart,

And spirits buoyant with excess of glee;

The horse as wanton, and almost as fleet,

That skims the spacious meadow at full speed,

Then stops, and snorts, and, throwing high his heels, Starts to the voluntary race again;

The very kine, that gambol at high noon,

The total herd receiving first from one,
That leads the dance, a summons to be gay,
Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth
Their efforts, yet resolved with one consent
To give such act and utterance as they may

To ecstasy too big to be suppress'd-
These, and a thousand images of bliss,
With which kind Nature graces every scene,
Where cruel man defeats not her design,
Impart to the benevolent, who wish
All that are capable of pleasure pleased,
A far superior happiness to theirs,
The comfort of a reasonable joy.

Man scarce had risen, obedient to His call
Who form'd him from the dust, his future grave,
When he was crown'd as never king was since.
God set the diadem upon his head,

And angel choirs attended. Wondering stood
The new-made monarch, while before him pass'd,
All happy, and all perfect in their kind,

The creatures, summon'd from their various haunts,
To see their sovereign, and confess his sway.
Vast was his empire, absolute his power,

Or bounded only by a law, whose force
'Twas his sublimest privilege to feel

And own, the law of universal love.

He ruled with meekness, they obey'd with joy ;
No cruel purpose lurk'd within his heart,

And no distrust of his intent in theirs.

So Eden was a scene of harmless sport,

Where kindness on his part, who ruled the whole,
Begat a tranquil confidence in all,

And fear as yet was not, nor cause for fear.
But sin marr'd all; and the revolt of man,

That source of evils not exhausted yet,
Was punish'd with revolt of his from him.
Garden of God, how terrible the change

Thy groves and lawns then witnessed! Every heart,
Each animal, of every name, conceived

A jealousy, and an instinctive fear,
And, conscious of some danger, either fled
Precipitate the loathed abode of man,
Or growl'd defiance in such angry sort,
As taught him too to tremble in his turn.
Thus harmony and family accord

Were driven from Paradise; and in that hour