When difunited BRITAIN ever bled,
Loft in eternal broil: ere yet fhe
To this deep-laid indiffoluble state,
Where Wealth and Commerce lift the golden head;
And, o'er our labours, Liberty and Law,
Impartial, watch the wonder of a world!
WHAT is this mighty Breath, ye curious, say, That, in a powerful language, felt not heard,
Inftructs the fowls of heaven; and thro' their breaft
These arts of love diffusses? What, but Gon?
Chief, lovely Spring, in thee, and thy foft fcenes,
The SMILING GOD is feen; while water, earth,
And air attest his bounty; which exalts
The brute-creation to this finer thought,
And annual melts their undefigning hearts.
Profufely thus in tenderness and joy.
STILL let my fong a nobler note affume, And fing th' infufive force of Spring on Man; 865
When heaven and earth, as if contending, vye
To raise his being, and serene his soul.
Can he forbear to joyn the general smile
Of Nature? Can fierce paffions vex his breast,
While every gale is peace, and every grove
Is melody? Hence! from the bounteous walks
Of flowing spring, ye fordid sons of earth,
Hard, and unfeeling of another's woe;
Or only lavish to yourselves; away!
But come, ye generous minds, in whose wide thought,
Of all his works, CREATIVE BOUNTY burns
With warmest beam; and on your open front
And liberal eye, fits, from his dark retreat
Inviting modest Want. Nor, till invok'd,
Can restless goodness wait; your active search
Leaves no cold wintry corner unexplor'd;
Like filent-working HEAVEN, furprizing oft
The lonely heart with unexpected good..
For you the roving spirit of the wind
Blows Spring abroad; for you the teaming clouds
Defcend in gladfome plenty o'er the world;
And the fun fheds his kindest rays for you,
Ye flower of human race!-In these green days,
Reviving Sickness lifts her languid head;
Life flows afresh; and young-ey'd Health exalts
The whole creation round. Contentment walks 890
The funny glade, and feels an inward blifs
Spring o'er his mind, beyond the power of kings
To purchase. Pure Serenity apace
Induces thought, and Contemplation still.
By fwift degrees the love of Nature works,
And warms the bofom; till at last sublim'd
To rapture, and enthusiastic heat,
We feel the prefent DEITY, and taste
The joy of GOD to see a happy world!
THESE are the facred feelings of thy heart, 900 Thy heart inform'd by reason's purer ray, O LYTTELTON, the friend! thy paffions thus And meditations vary, as at large,
Courting the Muse, thro'HAGLEY-PARK thou strayeft; Thy British Tempe! There along the dale, 995
With woods o'er-hung, and fhag'd with mossy rocks,
Whence on each hand the gushing waters play,
And down the rough cascade white-dashing fall,
Or gleam in lengthen'd vifta thro' the trees,
You filent fteal; or fit beneath the fhade
Of folemn oaks, that tuft the fwelling mounts.
Thrown graceful round by Nature's careless hand,
And pensive listen to the various voice
Of rural peace: the herds, the flocks, the birds,
The hollow-whifpering breeze, the plaint of rills,
That, purling down amid the twisted roots.
916
Which creep around, their dewy murmurs fhake
On the footh'd ear. From thefe abftracted oft,
You wander thro the philofophic world;
Where in bright train continual wonders rife,
Or to the curious or the pious eye.
And oft, conducted by hiftoric truth,
You tread the long extent of backward time:
Planning, with warm benevolence of mind,
And honeft zeal unwarp'd by party-rage,
BRITANNIA's weal; how from the venal gulph
To raise her virtue, and her arts revive.
Or, turning thence thy view, these graver thoughts The Muses charm: while, with fure tafte refin'd, You draw th' infpiring breath of ancient fong; 930 Till nobly rifes, emulous, thy own.
Perhaps thy lov'd LUCINDA fhares thy walk,
With foul to thine attun'd. Then Nature all
Wears to the lover's eye a look of love;
And all the tumult of a guilty world,
Toft by ungenerous paffions, finks away.
The tender heart is animated peace;
And as it pours its copious treasures forth,
In varied converfe, foftening every theme,
You, frequent-paufing, turn, and from her eyes, 940
Where meeken'd fenfe, and amiable grace,
And lively sweetnefs dwell, enraptur'd, drink.
That nameless spirit of ethereal joy,
Inimitable happiness! which love,
Alone, beftows, and on a favour'd few.
Meantime you gain the height, from whofe fair brow The bursting prospect fpreads immenfe around;
And fnatch'd o'er hill and dale, and wood and lawn, And verdant field, and darkening heath between, And villages embosom'd soft in trees,
And fpiry towns by furging columns mark'd
Of houshold fmoak, your eye excurfive roams:
Wide-stretching from the Hall, in whose kind haunt
The Hofpitable Genius lingers ftill,
To where the broken landskip, by degrees,
Ascending, roughens into rigid hills;
O'er which the Cambrian mountains, like far clouds.
That skirt the blue horizon, dusky rise.
FLUSH'D by the spirit of the genial year,
Now from the virgin's cheek a fresher bloom
Shoots, lefs and lefs, the live carnation round;
Her lips blush deeper fweets; fhe breathes of youth;
The fhining moisture fwells into her eyes,
In brighter flow; her wishing bofom heaves,
With palpitations wild; kind tumults feize
Her veins, and all her yielding foul is love.
From the keen gaze her lover turns away,
Full of the dear exftatic power, and fick
With fighing languishment. Ah then, ye fair!.
Be greatly cautious of your fliding hearts:
Dare not th' infectious figh; the pleading look,
Down-caft, and low, in meek submission drest,
But full of guile. Let not the fervent tongue,
Prompt to deceive, with adulation smooth,
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