FROM brightening fields of ether fair disclos'd,
Child of the Sun, refulgent SUMMER comes,
In pride of youth, and felt thro' Nature's depth :
He comes attended by the fultry hours,
And ever-fanning breezes, on his way;
While, from his ardent look, the turning SPRING
Averts her blushful face; and earth, and skies,
All-fmiling, to his hot dominion leaves.
Hence, let me hafte into the mid-wood shade,
Where scarce a fun-beam wanders thro' the gloom;
And on the dark-green grafs, befide the brink
Of haunted stream, that by the roots of oak
Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large,
And fing the glories of the circling year.
Come, Infpiration! from thy hermit-feat,
By mortal feldom found: may Fancy dare,
From thy fix'd serious eye, and raptur'd glance
Shot on furrounding Heaven, to fteal one look
Creative of the Poet, every power
Exalting to an ecstasy of foul?
And thou, my youthful Muse's early friend,
In whom the human graces all unite:
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart;
Genius, and wisdom; the gay social sense,
By decency chaftis'd; goodnefs and wit,
In feldom-meeting harmony combin'd
Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal
For BRITAIN'S glory, Liberty, and Man :
O DODINGTON! attend my rural fong,
Stoop to my theme, infpirit every line,
And teach me to deserve thy juft applause.
With what an awful world-revolving power Were firft the unwieldy planets launch'd along Th' illimitable void! Thus to remain, Amid the flux of many thousand years, That oft has fwept the toiling race of Men, And all their labour'd monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless, in their course; To the kind-temper'd change of night and day, And of the feafons ever stealing round,
Minutely faithful: fuch TH' ALL-PERFECT HAND!
That pois'd, impels, and rules the fteady WHOLE.
When now no more th' alternate Twins are fir'd,
And Cancer reddens with the folar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the night;
And foon, obfervant of approaching day,
The meek-ey'd Morn appears, mother of dews,
At firft faint-gleaming in the dappled eaft:
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow;
And, from before the luftre of her face,
White break the clouds away. With quickened step,
Brown Night retires: young Day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide,
The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top
Swell on the fight, and brighten with the dawn,
Blue, thro' the dusk, the smoaking currents fhine;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps, aukward: while along the foreft-glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze
At early paffenger. Mufic awakes
The native voice of undissembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arife.
Rous'd by the cock, the foon-clad fhepherd leaves.
His moffy cottage, where with Peace he dwells ;
|