Sleeping on the heath-clad hill. Languid is the landscape round, Till the fresh descending show'r, Grateful to the thirsty ground, Raises ev'ry fainting flow'r. Now the hill, the hedge, are green, Now the warbler's throat's in tune; Blithsome is the verdant scene, Brighten'd by the beams of Noon!
O'ER the heath the heifer strays
Free, (the furrow'd task is done;)
Now the village windows blaze,
Burnish'd by the setting sun.
Now he sets behind the hill,
Sinking from a golden sky :
Can the pencil's mimic skill
Copy the refulgent dye?
Trudging as the ploughmen go,
(To the smoking hamlet bound,)
Giant-like their shadows grow,
Lengthen'd o'er the level ground.
Where the rising forest spreads
Shelter for the lordly dome!
To their high-built airy beds,
See the rooks returning home!
As the lark, with vary'd tune,
Carols to the ev'ning loud;
Mark the mild resplendent moon,
Breaking through a parted cloud
Now the hermit owlet peeps
From the barn or twisted brak;
And the blue mist slowly creeps
Curling on the silver lake,
As the trout in speckled pae,
Playful from its bosom prings;
To the banks a ruffled de
Verges in successivings.
X
Tripping through the silken grass
O'er the path-divided dale,
Mark the rose-complexion'd lass
With her well-pois'd milking pail !
Linnets with unnumber'd notes,
And the cuckoo bird with two,
Tuning sweet their mellow throats,
Bid the setting sun adieu.
SECTION XX,
The Order of Nature.....
SEE, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Nature etherial, human, angel, man;
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing. On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From nature's chain, whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation roll,
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth, unbalanc'd, from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let raling angels from their spheres be hurl'd;
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature trembles to the throne of God.
All this dread order break; for whom? for thee?
Vile worm! Oh madness! pride! impiety!
What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,
Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear, repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd, for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame;
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing MIND OF ALL ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul:
That chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' etherial frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns;
'To him, no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Cease then, nor ORDER imperfection name;
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point; this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit. In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.
Confidence in Divine Protection.
How are thy servants blest, O Lord!
How sure is their defence!
Eternal wisdom is their guide,
Their help Omnipotence.
In foreign realms, and lands remote,
Supported by thy care,
Through burning climes I pass'd unhurt,
And breath'd in tainted air,
Thy mercy sweeten'd every soil,
Made every region please;
The hoary Alpine hills it warm'd
And smooth'd the Tyrrhene seas.
Think, O my soul, devoutly think,
How, with affrighted eyes,
Thou saw'st the wide extended deep
In all its horrors rise !
Confusion dwelt in ev'ry face,
And feat in ev'ry heart,
When waves on waves, and gulfs in gulfe,
O'ercame the pilot's art.
Yet then, from all my griefs, O Lord,
Thy mercy set me free;
While in the confidence of pray'r,
My soul took hold on thee.
For tho' in dreadful whirls we hung
High on the broken wave,
I knew thou wert not slow to hear,
Nor impotent to save.
The storm was laid, the winds retir'd
Obedient to thy will;
The sea that roar'd at thy command,
At thy command was still.
In midst of dangers, fears, and deaths,
Thy goodness I'll adore;
And praise thee for thy mercies past,
And humbly hope for more.
My life, if thou preserve my life,
Thy sacrifice shall be;
And death, if death must be my doom,
Shall join my soul to thee.
Hymn on a Review of the Seasons.
THESE, as they change, Almighty Father! these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the soft'ning air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles,
And ev'ry sense and ev'ry heart is joy.
Then comes Thy glory in the summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whisp'ring gales.
Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfin'd,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In winter, awful Thou! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,
Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing,
Riding sublime, Thou bidst the world adore;
And humblest nature with Thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combin'd,
Shade, unperceiv'd, so soft'ning into shade,
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wand'ring oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres;
Works in the secret deep: shoots, steaming 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 transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join ev'ry living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky.
In adoration join! and, ardent, raise
One general song!-
Ye, chief, for whom the whole creation
At once the head, the heart, and ton
Crown the great hymn!
For me, when I forget the dang theme,
Whether the blossom blovs, the summer ray
Russets the plain; inspiring autumn gleams;
Or winter rises in the black'ning east;
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