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To Nature's voice attends, from month to month,
And day to day, thro' the revolving year;
Admiring, fees her in her every shape;

Feels all her fweet emotions at his heart;
Takes what she liberal gives, nor thinks of more.
He, when young Spring protrudes the burfting gems,
Marks the first bud, and fucks the healthful gale
Into his freshened foul; her genial hours
He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows,
And not an opening bloffom breathes in vain.
In Summer he, beneath the living fhade,
Such as o'er frigid Tempe wont to wave,
Or Hemus cool, reads what the Mufe, of these
Perhaps, has in immortal numbers fung;
Or what the dictates writes; and oft, an eye
Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.
When Autumn's yellow luftre gilds the world,
And tempts the fickled fwain into the field,
Seiz'd by the general joy, his heart diftends
With gentle throes; and thro' the tepid gleams
Deep mufing, then he best exerts his fong.
Even Winter wild to him is full of bliss.

The mighty tempeft, and the hoary waste,
Abrupt, and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth,
Awake to folemn thought. At night the skies,

Difclos'd, and kindled, by refining froft,
Pour every luftre on th' exalted eye.

A friend, a book the stealing hours fecure,

And mark them down for wisdom. With fwift wing,
O'er land and fea imagination roams;

Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind,
Elates his being, and unfolds his powers;
Or in his breaft heroic virtue burns.

The touch of kindred too and love he feels;
The modeft eye, whose beams on his alone
Ecftatic fhine; the little ftrong embrace
Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck,
And emulous to please him, calling forth
The fond parental foul. Nor purpose gay,
Amusement, dance, or fong, he fternly scorns;
For happiness and true philosophy

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,
Shew me; their motions, periods, and their laws,
Give me to scan; thro' the disclosing deep
Light my blind way; the mineral ftrata there;
Thruft, blooming, thence the vegetable world;
O'er that the rifing fyftem, more complex,
Of animals; and higher ftill, the mind,
The varied scene of quick-compounded thought,
And where the mixing paffions endless shift;
These ever open to my ravish'd eye;

A fearch, the flight of time can neʼer exhaust!
But if to that unequal; if the blood,

In fluggish streams about my heart, forbid
That beft ambition; under clofing fhades,

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!

WINTER.

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.

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