The SMILING GOD is feen; while water, earth,
And air atteft his bounty; which exalts
The brute-creation to this finer thought,
And annual melts their undefigning hearts
Profufely thus in tenderness and joy.
STILL let my fong a nobler note affume,
And fing th' infufive force of Spring on Man;
When heaven and earth, as if contending, vye
To raise his being, and ferene his foul.
Can he forbear to join the general smile
Of Nature? Can fierce paffions vex his breaft,
While every gale is peace, and every grove
Is melody? Hence! from the bounteous walks
Of flowing Spring, ye fordid fons of earth,
Hard, and unfeeling of another's woe;
Or only lavish to yourselves; away !
But come, ye generous minds, in whofe wide thought,
Of all his works, CREATIVE BOUNTY burns
With warmest beam; and on your open front
And liberal eye, fits, from his dark retreat
Can reftlefs goodness wait; your active fearch
Leaves no cold wintry corner unexplor❜d;
Like filent-working HEAVEN, furprizing oft
The lonely heart with unexpected good.
For you the roving spirit of the wind
Blows Spring abroad; for you the teeming clouds
Defcend in glad fome plenty o'er the world;
And the fun sheds his kindeft rays for you,
Ye flower of human race! In these green days,
Reviving Sickness lifts her languid head;
Life flows afresh; and young-ey'd Health exalts 890
The whole creation round. Contentment walks
The funny glade, and feels an inward bliss
Spring o'er his mind, beyond the power of kings
To purchase. Pure ferenity apace
Induces thought, and contemplation still.
By fwift degrees the love of Nature works,
And warms the bofom; till at laft fublim'd
To rapture, and enthufiaftic heat,
We feel the prefent DEITY, and taste
The joy of GOD to fee a happy world!
THESE are the facred feelings of thy heart,
Thy heart inform'd by reason's purer ray,
O LYTTELTON, the friend! thy paffions thus
And meditations vary, as at large,
Courting the Mufe, thro' Hagley Park thou ftrayeft;
Thy British Tempe! There along the dale,
With woods o'er-hung, and fhagg'd with moffy rocks,
Whence on cach hand the gushing waters play,
And down the rough cascade white-dashing fall,
Or gleam in lengthened vista thro' the trees,
You filent fteal; or fit beneath the shade
Of folemn oaks, that tuft the fwelling mounts
Thrown graceful round by Nature's careless hand,
And penfive listen to the various voice
Of rural peace: the herds, the flocks, the birds, 915
The hollow-whispering breeze, the plaint of rills,
That, purling down amid the twisted roots
Which creep around, their dewy murmurs fhake
On the footh'd ear. From thefe abftracted oft,
You wander thro' the philofophic world;
Where in bright train continual wonders rise,
Or to the curious or the pious eye.
And oft conducted by historic truth,
You tread the long extent of backward time :
Planning, with warm benevolence of mind,
And honest zeal unwarp'd by party-rage,
BRITANNIA's weal; how from the venal gulph
To raise her virtue, and her arts revive,
Or, turning thence thy view, these graver thoughts
The Mufes charm: while, with fure tafte refin'd, 930
You draw th' infpiring breath of ancient song;
Till nobly rifes, emulous, thy own. ⠀
Perhaps thy lov'd LUCINDA fhares thy walk,
With foul to thine attun'd. Then Nature all
Wears to the lover's eye a look of love;
And all the tumult of a guilty world,
Toft by ungenerous paffions, finks away.
The tender heart is animated peace;
And as it pours its copious treasures forth,
In varied converfe, foftening every theme,
You, frequent-paufing, turn, and from her eyes,
Where meekened fenfe, and amiable grace,
And lively sweetness dwell, enraptur'd, drink
That nameless fpirit of ethereal joy,
Unutterable happiness! which love,
Alone, beftows, and on a favour'd few.
Meantime you gain the height, from whose fair brow The bursting profpect fpreads immenfe around:
And snatch'd o'er hill and dale, and wood and lawn, And verdant field, and darkening heath between, 950 And villages embosom'd soft in trees,
And fpiry towns by furging columns mark'd
Of houfhold fmoak, your eye excurfive roams: Wide-ftretching from the Hall, in whofe kind haunt The Hofpitable Genius lingers ftill,
To where the broken landskip, by degrees,
Afcending, roughens into rigid hills;
O'er which the Cambrian mountains, like far clouds
That skirt the blue horizon, dufky rife.
FLUSH'D by the spirit of the genial year,
Now from the virgin's cheek a fresher bloom
Shoots, lefs and lefs, the live carnation round;
Her lips blush deeper fweets; fhe breathes of youth';
The fhining moisture fwells into her eyes,
In brighter flow; her wishing bofom heaves,
With palpitations wild; kind tumults feize
Her veins, and all her yielding foul is love.
From the keen gaze her lover turns away,
Full of the dear extatic power, and fick
With fighing languishment. Ah then, ye fair! 970
Be greatly cautious of your fliding hearts:
Dare not th' infectious figh; the pleading look,
Down caft, and low, in meek fubmiffion dreft,
But full of guile. Let not the fervent tongue,
Prompt to deceive, with adulation fmooth,
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