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That cultivation glories in, are his.

He sets the bright procession on its way,
And marshals all the order of the year.

He marks the bounds which winter may not pass,
And blunts his pointed fury. In its case
Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ
Uninjured, with inimitable art,

And ere one flowery season fades and dies
Designs the blooming wonders of the next.
Some say that in the origin of things,
When all creation started into birth,

The infant elements received a law

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From which they swerve not since. That under force
Of that controling ordinance they move,

And need not his immediate hand, who first
Prescribed their course, to regulate it now.
Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God
The encumbrance of his own concerns, and spare
The great Artificer of all that moves
The stress of a continual act, the pain
Of unremitted vigilance and care,
As too laborious and severe a task.
So man the moth, is not afraid it seems
To span Omnipotence, and measure might
That knows no measure, by the scanty rule
And standard of his own, that is to-day,
And is not ere to-morrow's sun go down.
But how should matter occupy a charge
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law

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So vast in its demands, unless impell'd

To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force,

And under pressure of some conscious cause?
The Lord of all, himself through all diffused,

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Sustains and is the life of all that lives.
Nature is but a name for an effect
Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire
By which the mighty process is maintain'd,
Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight
Slow-circling ages are as transient days;
Whose work is without labour, whose designs
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts,
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.
Him blind antiquity profaned, not served,
With self-taught rites and under various names,
Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan,

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And Flora and Vertumnus; peopling earth

With tutelary goddesses and gods

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That were not, and commending as they would
To each some province, garden, field, or grove.
But all are under One. One spirit-His
Who bore the platted thorns with bleeding brows,
Rules universal nature. Not a flower

But shows some touch in freckle, streak or stain,
Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odours and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes
In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds
Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flower,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In Nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a present God.
His presence who made all so fair, perceived,
Makes all still fairer. As with him no scene

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Is dreary, so with him all seasons please 12.
Though winter had been none had man been true,
And earth be punished for its tenant's sake,
Yet not in vengeance; as this smiling sky
So soon succeeding such an angry night,
And these dissolving snows 13, and this clear stream
Recovering fast its liquid music, prove.

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Who then that has a mind well strung and tuned To contemplation, and within his reach

A scene so friendly to his favourite task,
Would waste attention at the chequer'd board 1,
His host of wooden warriors to and fro
Marching and counter-marching, with an eye
As fixt as marble, with a forehead ridged
And furrow'd into storms, and with a hand
Trembling, as if eternity were hung
In balance on his conduct of a pin 1?
Nor envies he aught more their idle sport
Who pant with application misapplied
To trivial toys, and pushing ivory balls
Across the velvet level, feel a joy

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12 With thee conversing I forget all time,
All seasons and their change all please alike.
Pur. Lost, iv. 637.

13 Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost.

14 Turpe est difficiles habere nugas. Martial.

Spring, 16.

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15 Or if he [Alexander] played at chess, what string of his soul was not touched by this idle and childish game! I hate and avoid it because it is not play enough; it is too grave and serious a diversion, and I am ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon that as would serve to much better uses.-Montaigne, (Cotton's), i. 50.

S. C.-9.

R

Akin to rapture, when the bauble finds
Its destined goal of difficult access.

Nor deems he wiser him, who gives his noon
To Miss, the Mercer's plague, from shop to shop
Wandering, and littering with unfolded silks
The polished counter, and approving none,
Or promising with smiles to call again.
Nor him, who by his vanity seduced

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And soothed into a dream that he discerns

The difference of a Guido from a daub,

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Frequents the crowded auction. Station'd there
As duly as the Langford of the show,
With glass at eye, and catalogue in hand,

And tongue accomplished in the fulsome cant
And pedantry that coxcombs learn with ease,
Oft as the price-deciding hammer falls
He notes it in his book, then raps his box,
Swears 'tis a bargain, rails at his hard fate
That he has let it pass,-but never bids.

Here unmolested, through whatever sign
The sun proceeds, I wander. Neither mist,
Nor freezing sky, nor sultry, checking me,
Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy.
Even in the spring and play-time of the year
That calls the unwonted villager abroad
With all her little ones, a sportive train,
To gather king-cups in the yellow mead,
And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick
A cheap but wholesome sallad from the brook,
These shades are all my own. The timorous hare,
Grown so familiar with her frequent guest,
Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove unalarm'd

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Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends
His long love-ditty for my near approach.
Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm
That age or injury has hollow'd deep,
Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves
He has outslept the winter, ventures forth
To frisk a while, and bask in the warm sun,
The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play.
He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird,
Ascends the neighbouring beech; there whisks his brush
And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud,
With all the prettiness of feign'd alarm,

And anger insignificantly fierce.

The heart is hard in nature, and unfit

For human fellowship, as being void

Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike

To love and friendship both, that is not pleased
With sight of animals enjoying life,

Nor feels their happiness augment his own.

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The bounding fawn that darts across the glade When none pursues, through mere delight of heart, And spirits buoyant with excess of glee;

The horse, as wanton and almost as fleet,

That skims the spacious meadow at full speed, Then stops and snorts, and throwing high his heels. Starts to the voluntary race again;

The very kine that gambol at high noon,

The total herd receiving first from one
That leads the dance, a summons to be gay,
Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth
Their efforts, yet resolved with one consent
To give such act and utterance as they may

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