To Nature's voice attends, from month to month, Feels all her fweet emotions at his heart; The mighty tempeft, and the hoary waste, Difclos'd, and kindled, by refining froft, A friend, a book the stealing hours fecure, And mark them down for wisdom. With fwift wing, Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind, The touch of kindred too and love he feels; Are of the social still, and fmiling kind. This is the life which those who fret in guilt, And guilty cities, never knew; the life, Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt, When angels dwelt, and God himself, with Man! Oh NATURE! all-fufficient! over all! Inrich me with the knowledge of thy works! Snatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonders there, World beyond world, in infinite extent. Profufely scattered o'er the blue immenfe, A fearch, the flight of time can neʼer exhaust! In fluggish streams about my heart, forbid Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook, And whisper to my dreams. From THEE begin, Dwell all on THEE, with THEE Conclude my fong; And let me never never ftray from THEE! THE ARGUMENT. The subject proposed. Address to the Earl of WILMINGTON. First approach of Winter. According to the natural course of the season, various storms described. Rain. Wind. Snow. The driving of the fnows: a man perishing among them; whence reflections on the wants and miseries of human life. The wolves defcending from the Alps and Apennines. A winter-evening described: as spent by philofophers; by the country people; in the city. Froft. A view of Winter within the polar Circle. A thaw. The whole concluding with moral reflections on a future state. |