All now are vanifh'd! VIRTUE fole-furvives,
Immortal never-failing friend of Man,
His guide to happiness on high. And fee!
Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heaven, and earth! awakening Nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In every heightened form, from pain and death 1045
For ever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the profpect wider spreads,
To reafon's eye refin'd clears up apace.
Ye vainly wife! ye blind prefumptuous now, 1050
Confounded in the duft, adore that POWER,
And WISDOM oft arraign'd: fee now the caufe,
Why unaffuming worth in fecret liv'd,
And dy'd, neglected: why the good Man's fhare
In life as gall and bitterness of foul:
Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd
In flaring folitude; while luxury,
In pales lay training her low thought,
To.for unreal wants why heaven-born truth,
And moderation fair, wore the red marks.
Of fuperftitions fcourge: why licens'd pain,
That cruel spoiler that embofom'd foe,
Imbittered all our blifs. Ye good distrest !
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's preffure, yet bear up a while,
And what your bounded view, which only faw
A little part, deem'd Evil is no more:
The ftorms of WINTRY TIME will quickly pass,
And one unbounded SPRING encircle all.
Are but the varied GOD. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
THY beauty walks, THY tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the foreft fmiles;
And every sense, and every heart is joy,
Then comes THY glory in the Summer-months,
With light and heat refulgent, Then THY fun
Shoots full perfection thro' the fwelling year:
And oft THY voice in dreadful thunder speaks;
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales,
THY bounty fhines in Autumn unconfin'd,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful THOU! with clouds and storms
Around THEE thrown, tempeft o'er tempeft roll'd, Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing, Riding fublime, THOU bidft the world adore,
And humbleft Nature with THY northern blaft. 20
MYSTERIOUS round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a fimple train,
Yet fo delightful mix'd, with fuch kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combin'd;
Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into fhade;
And all fo forming an harmonious whole;
That, as they ftill fucceed, they ravish ftill.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not THEE, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever-bufy, wheels the filent spheres ;
Works in the fecret deep; fhoots, fteaming, thence
The fair profufion that o'erfpreads the Spring:
Flings from the fun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempeft forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the fprings of life.
NATURE, attend! join every living soul,
Beneath the fpacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise
One general fong! To HIM, ye vocal gales,
Breathe foft, whofe SPIRIT in your freshness breathes:
Oh talk of HIM in folitary glooms!
Where, o'er the rock, the fcarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whofe bolder note is heard afar,
Who fhake th' astonish'd world, lift high to heaven Th' impetuous fong, and fay from whom you rage, His praife, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills; And let me catch it as I mufe along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound;
Ye fofter floods, that lead, the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A fecret world of wonders in thyfelf,
Sound His ftupendous praife; whofe greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Soft-roll your incenfe, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to HIM; whofe fun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forefts bend, ye harvefts wave, to HIM;
Breathe your ftill fong into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
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