NOR to this evanefcent speck of earth Poorly confin'd, the radiant tracts on high Are her exalted range; intent to gaze Creation thro'; and, from that full complex

Of never-ending wonders, to conceive

1785

Of the SOLE BEING right, who spoke the Word,

And Nature mov'd complete. With inward view,
Thence on th' ideal kingdom swift she turns

Her eye; and inftant, at her powerful glance,
Th' 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, fits deep.
Enough for us to know that this dark state,
In wayward paffions loft, and vain pursuits,
This Infancy of Being, cannot prove
The final iffue of the works of God,

'By boundless Love and perfect WISDOM form'd,

And ever rifing with the rifing mind.

1790

1795

1800

AUTUMN.

Τ

A U TU M N.

The ARGUMENT.

The fubject propofed. Addreffed to Mr. ONSLOW. A

Reflections in
Reaping. A
Shooting and

profpect of the fields ready for harvest. praife of industry raised by that view. tale relative to it. A harvest ftorm. hunting, their barbarity. A ludicrous account of foxbunting. A view of an orchard. Wall-fruit. A vineyard. A defcription of fogs, frequent in the latter part of Autumn: whence a digreffion, enquiring into the rife of fountains and rivers. Birds of feafon confidered, that now shift their habitation. The prodigious number of them that cover the northern and western ifles of SCOTLAND. Hence a view of the country. A profpect of the difcoloured, fading woods. After a gentle dusky day, moon-light. Autumnal meteors. Morning: to which fucceeds a calm, pure, fun-fhiny day, fuch as ufually fouts up the feafon. The harvest being gathered in, the country diffolved in joy. The whole concludes with a panegyric on a philofophical country life.