Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine, Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,5 Yet so delightful, mix'd with such kind art, Such beauty and beneficence combined; Shade unperceiv'd so softening into shade; And all so forming an harmonious whole, That, as they still succeed, they ravish' still. But, wandering oft with brute unconscious gaze, Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres;8 Works in the secret deep; shoots teeming thence The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring; Flings from the sun direct the flaming day; Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth; And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, With transport9 touches all the springs of life.

Nature, attend! Join, every living soul, Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, In adoration join; and, ardent, raise

One general song!

To Him, ye vocal gales,

Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes : Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms!

Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely-waving pine,

Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.

And ye,10 whose bolder note is heard afar,

round, the circle of the seasons.

5 train, the seasons imaged as a
procession.

6 beneficence, active goodness.
7 ravish, delight, as it were, carry
off or transport with joy.

8 spheres, worlds.

9 transport, delight.

10 Supply "waters." The lines that follow show this to be the meaning.

Who shake th' astonished world, lift high to Heaven
Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune-ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze11
Along the vale; and thou majestic main,12
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.

Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in Heaven, as Earth, asleep,
Unconscious lies, effuse1s your mildest beams;
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.15

14

Great Source of Day !16 best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,

From world to world, the vital ocean," round,
On nature write, with every beam, His praise.
The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate world;
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.

11 The winding course of rivers.
12 The ocean, or main sea.
13 effuse, pour forth.

14 The groups of stars. They are the

same as "ye that keep watch," &c.

15 Their angel populations are to praise God.

16 The sun.

Light and heat poured round all worlds like an ocean of life.

Bleat out, afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound: the broad responsive1s low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns;
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake: A boundless song
Bursts from the groves! and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,

Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela,1o charm
The listening shades, and teach the night His praise.
Ye chief,20 for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join

The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to Heaven.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane21 in every sacred grove;
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph,22 and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of Seasons as they roll.

For me when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray
Russets 23 the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,

18 responsive, answering.

19 The nightingale, so named from a daughter of a king of Attica, in Greece, who was fabled to have been changed into a nightingale or swallow. It sings, as is known, by night.

20 Mankind.

21 fane, a temple, L. fanum.
22 The seraph or angel who is here
supposed to inspire with devotion.
23 russets, makes red, or rusty
brown.

Or Winter rises in the blackening east,
Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!

Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains,24 or his setting beam
Flames on the Atlantic isles :25-'tis nought to me,
Since God is ever present, ever felt,

In the void waste as in the city full;

And where He vital26 breathes there must be joy.

When, even at last, the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic27 flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new pow'rs,
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go
Where Universal Love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their sons28-
From seeming evil still educing good,"
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression.29 But I lose
Myself in Him, in Light ineffable;30
Come then, expressive Silence, muse His praise.

51

HEALTH.

An! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven
When drooping health and spirits go amiss?
How tasteless then whatever can be given:
Health is the vital' principle of bliss,

And exercise of health. In proof of this,
Behold the wretch who slugs2 his life away,

Soon swallowed in disease's sad abyss;3

While he whom toil has braced, or manly play,
Has light as air each limb, each thought as clear as day.

O who can speak the vigorous joys of health!

Unclogged the body, unobscured the mind; The morning rises gay, with pleasing stealth, The temperate evening falls serene and kind. In health the wiser brutes true gladness find: See how the younglings frisk along the meads, As May comes on, and wakes the balmy wind; Rampant with joy, their joy all joy exceeds; Yet what but high-strung health this dancing pleasaunces breeds?

I vital, essential; that which gives

it life.

2 slugs, idles.

3 abyss, a bottomless gulf.

1 unobscured, undarkened.

temperate, neither hot nor cold.

younglings, here, young calves, lambs, &c.

7 rampant, leaping.

8 pleasaunce, an old word for delight.