Will from thy ftandard taste refine her own, Correct her pencil to the pureft truth Of Nature, or, the unimpaffion'd fhades Forfaking, raise it to the human mind. Or if hereafter she, with jufter hand, Shall draw the tragic scene, inftruct her thou, To mark the varied movements of the heart, What every decent character requires, And every paffion speaks: O thro' her strain Breathe thy pathetic eloquence! that moulds Th' attentive fenate, charms, perfuades, exalts, Of honeft zeal th' indignant lightning throws, And shakes corruption on her venal throne. While thus we talk, and thro' Elyfian Vales Delighted rove, perhaps a figh escapes: What pity, СовHAM, thou thy verdant files Of ordered trees fhould't here inglorious range, Inftead of squadrons flaming o'er the field, And long embattled hofts! when the proud foe, The faithlefs vain disturber of mankind, Infulting Gaul, has rous'd the world to war; When keen, once more, within their bounds to press Those polish'd robbers, thofe ambitious flaves, The BRITISH YOUTH would hail thy wife command, Thy temper'd ardor and thy veteran skill,
The western fun withdraws the shortened day; And humid evening, gliding o'er the sky, In her chill progress, to the ground condens'd The vapours throws. Where creeping waters ooze, Where marfhes ftagnate, and where rivers wind, Clufter the rolling fogs, and swim along The dusky mantled lawn. Meanwhile the moon Full-orb'd, and breaking thro' the scatter'd clouds, Shews her broad vifage in the crimson'd east. Turn'd to the fun direct, her spotted disk, Where mountains rife, umbrageous dales descend, And caverns deep, as optic tube defcries, A smaller earth, gives us his blaze again, Void of its flame, and fheds a fofter day. Now thro' the paffing cloud fhe feems to stoop, Now up the pure cerulean rides fublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats, and ftreaming mild O'er the sky'd mountain to the fhadowy vale, While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam, The whole air whitens with a boundless tide Of filver radiance, trembling round the world. But when half blotted from the sky her light, Fainting, permits the starry fires to burn With keener luftre thro' the depth of heaven; Or near extinct her deadened orb appears,
And scarce appears, of fickly beamless white; Oft in this feason, filent from the north A blaze of meteors shoots: enfweeping first The lower skies, they all at once converge High to the crown of heaven, and all at once Relapfing quick as quickly reafcend, And mix, and thwart, extinguish, and renew, All ether courfing in a maze of light.
From look to look, contagious thro' the crowd, The panic runs, and into wondrous shapes Th' appearance throws: armies in meet array, Throng'd with aërial spears, and steeds of fire; Till the long lines of full-extended war In bleeding fight commixt, the fanguine flood Rolls a broad flaughter o'er the plains of heaven. As thus they scan the vifionary scene, On all fides fwells the fuperftitious din, Incontinent; and bufy frenzy talks
Of blood and battle; cities overturn'd, And late at night in swallowing earthquake funk, Or hideous wrapt in fierce afcending flame; Of fallow famine, inundation, ftorm; Of peftilence, and every great distress; Empires fubvers'd, when ruling fate has struck The unalterable hour: even Nature's felf
Is deem'd to totter on the brink of time. Not fo the man of philofophic eye,
And infpect fage; the waving brightness he Curious furveys, inquifitive to know
The caufes, and materials, yet unfix'd, Of this appearance beautiful and new.
Now black, and deep, the night begins to fall, A fhade immenfe. Sunk in the quenching gloom, Magnificent and vaft, are heaven and earth. Order confounded lies; all beauty void; Distinction loft; and gay variety
One univerfal blot: fuch the fair
Of light, to kindle and create the whole. Drear is the state of the benighted wretch, Who then, bewilder'd, wanders thro' the dark, Full of pale fancies, and chimeras huge; Nor vifited by one directive ray,
From cottage ftreaming, or from airy hall. Perhaps impatient as he ftumbles on, Struck from the root of flimy rushes, blue, The wild-fire scatters round, or gathered traile A length of flame deceitful o'er the moss; Whither decoy'd by the fantastic blaze, Now loft and now renew'd, he finks abforpt, Rider and horse, amid the miry gulph:
While ftill, from day to day, his pining wife, And plaintive children his return await, In wild conjecture loft. At other times, Sent by the better Genius of the night, Innoxious, gleaming on the horse's mane, The meteor fits; and shews the narrow path, That winding leads thro' pits of death, or else Inftructs him how to take the dangerous ford.
The lengthened night elaps'd, the morning shines Serene, in all her dewy beauty bright, Unfolding fair the last autumnal day. And now the mounting fun difpels the fog; The rigid hoar-froft melts before his beam; And hung on every fpray, on every blade Of grafs, the myriad drew-drops twinkle round. Ah fee where robb'd, and murder'd, in that pit Lies the ftill-heaving hive! at evening snatch'd, Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night, And fix'd o'er fulphur: while, not dreaming ill, The happy people, in their waxen cells, Sat tending public cares, and planning schemes Of temperance, for Winter poor; rejoiced To mark, full-flowing round, their copious ftores. Sudden the dark oppreffive steam ascends ; And, us'd to milder fcents, the tender race,
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