The few that

pray at all pray

oft amiss,

And, seeking grace t' improve the prize they hold, Would urge a wiser suit than asking more.

The night was winter in its roughest mood; The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon Upon the southern side of the slant hills,

And where the woods fence off the northern blast, The season smiles, resigning 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 th' embattled tow'r
Whence all the music. I again perceive

The soothing influence of the wafted strains,
And settle in soft musings as I tread

The walk, still 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 suffic'd,
And, intercepting in their silent 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 slender notes, and more than half suppress'd:
Pleas'd with his solitude, and flitting light

From spray

spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes From many a twig the pendent drops of ice, That tinkle in the wither'd leaves below.

Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,
Charms more than silence. Meditation here
May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give an useful lesson 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 smooth'd and squar'd and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems t'enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells,

By which the magic art of shrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall'd.
Some to the fascination of a name

Surrender judgment, hood-wink'd. Some the style
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds
Of error leads them by a tune entranc'd.

While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear
The insupportable fatigue of thought,

And swallowing, therefore, without pause or choice,
The total grist unsifted, husks and all.

But trees, and rivulets whose rapid course Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer, And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs, And lanes in which the primrose ere her time

Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn

root,

Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth,

Not shy, as in the world, and to be won
By slow solicitation, seize at once

The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.

What prodigies can pow'r divine perform
More grand than it produces year by year,
And all in sight of inattentive man?

Familiar with th' effect we slight the cause,
And, in the constancy of nature's course,
The regular return of genial months,

And renovation of a faded world,

See nought to wonder at. Should God again, As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race

Of the undeviating and punctual sun,

How would the world admire! but speaks it less An agency divine, to make him know

His moment when to sink and when to rise,

Age after age, than to arrest his course?

All we behold is miracle; but, seen

So duly, all is miracle in vain.

Where now the vital energy that mov'd,
While summer was, the pure and subtile lymph
Through th' imperceptible meand'ring veins

Of leaf and flow'r? It sleeps; and th' icy touch
Of unprolific winter has impress'd

A cold stagnation on th' intestine tide.

But let the months go round, a few short months,
And all shall be restor❜d. These naked shoots,
Barren as lances, among which the wind
Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes,

Shall put their graceful foliage on again,

And, more aspiring, and with ampler spread,

Shall boast new charms, and more than they have

lost.

Then, each in its peculiar honours clad,
Shall publish, even to the distant eye,

Its family and tribe. Labernum, rich