And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehenfive views the spirit takes,
That in a few fhort moments I retrace
(As in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many years.
Short as in retrospect the journey seems,
It seemed not always fhort; the rugged path,
And profpect oft fo dreary and forlorn,
Moved many a figli at its difheartening length.
Yet feeling prefent evils, while the past
Faintly imprefs the mind, or not at all,
How readily we wish time spent revoked,
That we might try the ground again, where once
(Through inexperience, as we now perceive)
We miffed that happiness we might have found!
Some friend is gone, perhaps his fon's best friend,
A father, whose authority, in show
When moft severe, and mustering all its force,
Was but the graver countenance of love;
Whofe favour, like the clouds of spring, might lower,
And utter now and then an awful voice,
But had a bleffing in its darkeft frown,
Threatening at once and nourishing the plant.
We loved, but not enough, the gentle hand,
That reared us. At a thoughtless age, allured
By every gilded folly, we renounced
His fheltering fide, and wilfully forewent
That converse, which we now in vain regret.
How gladly would the man recall to life
The boy's neglected fire! a mother too,
That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still,
Might he demand them at the gates of death.
Sorrow has, fince they went, fubdued and tamed
The playful humour; he could now endure,
(Himself grown sober in the vale of tears)
And feel a parent's prefence no restraint.
But not to understand a treasure's worth
Till time has ftolen away the flighted good,
Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the world the wildernefs it is.
The few that pray at all pray oft amiss,
And, seeking grace to improve the prize they hold,
Would urge a wifer fuit than asking more.
The night was winter in his rougheft mood; The morning fharp and clear. But now at noon Upon the fouthern fide of the flant hills, And where the woods fence off the northern blaft, The feafon fmiles, refigning all its rage, And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue Without a cloud, and white without a fpeck The dazzling splendour of the scene below.
Again the harmony comes o'er the vale;
And through the trees I view the embattled tower,
Whence all the mufic. I again perceive
The foothing influence of the wafted ftrains,
And settle in soft mufings as I tread.
The walk, ftill verdant, under oaks and elms,
Whose outspread branches overarch the glade.
The roof, though moveable through all its length:
As the wind fways it, has yet well fufficed,
And intercepting in their filent fall
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me.
No noife is here, or none that hinders thought.
The redbreaft warbles ftill, but is content
With flender notes, and more than half fuppreffed :
Pleafed with his folitude, and flitting light
From spray to fpray, where'er he refts he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice,
That tinkle in the withered leaves below.
Stillness, accompanied with founds fo foft,
Charms more than filence. Meditation here
May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give an useful leffon to the head,
And learning wiser grow without his books.
Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
Have oft-times no connexion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men ;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mafs,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and fquared and fitted to its place,
Does but incumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned fo much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not feldom talifmans and fpells,
By which the magic art of fhrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled.
Some to the fafcination of a name
Surrender judgment, hood-winked. Some the style
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds
Of error leads them by a tune entranced.
While floth fedúces more, too weak to bear
The infupportable fatigue of thought,
And swallowing therefore without pause or choice
The total grift unfifted, husks and all.
But trees and rivulets whofe rapid course,
Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer,
And fheep-walks populous with bleating lambs,
And lanes, in which the primrose ere her time
Peeps through the mofs,that clothes the hawthorn root,
Deceive no ftudent. Wifdom there, and truth,
Not fhy, as in the world, and to be won
By flow folicitation, seize at once
The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.
What prodigies can power divine perform
More grand than it produces year by year,
And all in fight of inattentive man?
Familiar with the effect we flight the cause,
And in the conftancy of nature's course,
The regular return of genial months,
And renovation of a faded world,
See nought to wonder at.
As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race
Of the undeviating and punctual fun,
How would the world admire! but speaks it lefs
An agency divine, to make him know
His moment when to fink and when to rife,
Age after age, than to arreft his course?
All we behold is miracle; but feen
So duly all is miracle in vain.
Where now the vital energy that moved,
While fummer was, the pure and subtle lymph
Through the imperceptible meandering veins
Of leaf and flower? It fleeps; and the icy touch
Of unprolific winter has impreffed
A cold ftagnation on the inteftine tide.
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