And never to be totally extinguished. It is a flame that dies not even there, Where nothing feeds it: neither business, crowds, Whatever else they smother of true worth The villas, with which London stands begirt, The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms, Though sickly samples of the exuberant whole. What are the casements lined with creeping herbs, Invocation to Rural Life. The prouder sashes fronted with a range The Frenchman's* darling? are they not all proofs That man, immured in cities, still retains His inborn inextinguishable thirst 1 Of rural scenes, compensating his loss By supplemental shifts, the best he may? The most unfurnished with the means of life, And they that never pass their brick-wall bounds Hail, therefore, patroness of health and ease; And contemplation, heart-consoling joys * Mignionette. Man fitted for his Station in Life. And harmless pleasures, in the thronged abode He gives a tongue to enlarge upon, an heart To artists ingenuity and skill; To me an unambitious mind, content In the low vale of life, that early felt A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long Found here that leisure and that ease I wished. THE TASK. BOOK V. THE WINTER MORNING WALK. THE ARGUMENT. A frosty morning.-The foddering of cattle.-The woodman and his dog. The poultry.-Whimsical effects of a frost at a waterfall.The Empress of Russia's palace of ice.-Amusements of monarchs.— War, one of them.-Wars, whence-And whence monarchy-The evils of it.-English and French loyalty contrasted.-The Bastile, and a prisoner there.-Liberty the chief recommendation of this country. Modern patriotism questionable, and why.-The perishable nature of the best human institutions.-Spiritual liberty not perishable. The slavish state of man by nature.-Deliver him, Deist, if you can.-Grace must do it.-The respective merits of patriots and martyrs stated.-Their different treatment.-Happy freedom of the man whom grace makes free.-His relish of the works of God.-Address to the Creator. "TIS Is morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds, That crowd away before the driving wind, More ardent as the disk emerges more, |