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THE TASK.

BOOK VI.

THE WINTER WALK AT NOON.

THERE is in fouls a fympathy with sounds,
And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave,
Some chord in unifon with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
How foft the mufic of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder ftill,
Clear and fonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where memory slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the fcene recurs,

And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehensive 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 figh at its difheartening length.
Yet feeling prefent evils, while the past
Faintly impress the mind, or not at all,
How readily we with time spent revoked,
That we might try the ground again, where once
(Through inexperience, as we now perceive)
We missed that happiness we might have found!
Some friend is gone, perhaps his fon's best friend,
A father, whofe authority, in fhow

When most severe, and mustering all its force,
Was but the graver countenance of love;

Whofe favour, like the clouds of fpring, might lower,
And utter now and then an awful voice,

But had a bleffing in its darkest 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 fofter 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 fober 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 caufe of half the poverty we feel,

And makes the world the wilderness it is.
The few that pray at all pray oft amifs,

And, feeking grace to improve the prize they hold,
Would urge a wifer fuit than asking more.

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The night was winter in his roughest 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 blast,

The season smiles, refigning all its rage,

And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue
Without a cloud, and white without a speck
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 soothing influence of the wafted strains,
And settle in foft 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 sways it, has yet well fufficed,
And intercepting in their filent fall

The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me.
No noise is here, or none that hinders thought.
The redbreast warbles still, but is content
With flender notes, and more than half fuppreffed:
Pleased with his folitude, and flitting light
From fpray to fspray, 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 so soft,
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 mass,

The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared 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 seldom talismans and spells,
By which the magic art of fhrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled.
Some to the fascination 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 feduces more, too weak to bear
The infupportable fatigue of thought,

And fwallowing therefore without pause or choice
The total grift unfifted, hufks and all.

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