The virgin's fhriek, and infant's trembling cry.
Let fome, far-diftant from their native foil,
Urg'd or by want or harden'd avarice,
Find other lands beneath another fun.
Let this through cities work his eager way,
By legal outrage and establish'd guile,
The focial fenfe extinct; and that ferment
Mad into tumult the feditious herd,
Or melt them down to flavery. Let these
Infnare the wretched in the toils of law,
Fomenting difcord, and perplexing right,
An iron race! and thofe of fairer front,
But equal inhumanity, in courts,
Delusive pomp, and dark cabals, delight;
Wreathe the deep bow, diffuse the lying fmile, 1295
And tread the weary labyrinth of state.
While he, from all the ftormy paffions free
That restless Men involve, hears, and but hears,
At distance fafe, the human tempeft roar,
Wrapt close in conscious peace. The fall of kings,
The rage
Move not the Man, who, from the world efcap'd,
of nations, and the crush of states,
In ftill retreats, and flow'ry folitudes,
To Nature's voice attends, from month to month,
And day to day, thro' the revolving year;
Admiring, fees her in her ev'ry shape;
Feels all her fweet emotions at his heart;
'Takes what she lib'ral gives, nor thinks of more.
He, when young Spring portrudes the bursting gems,
Marks the first bud, and fucks the healthful gale 1310
Into his freshen'd foul; her genial hours
He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows,
And not an op❜ning blossom breathes in vain.
In Summer he, beneath the living fhade,
Such as o'er frigid Tempe wont to wave,
Or Hemus cool, reads what the Muse, of these
Perhaps, has in immortal numbers fung;
Or what she dictates writes: and, oft an eye
Shot round, rejoices in the vig'rous year.
When Autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world,
And tempts the fickled swain into the field,
Seiz'd by the gen'ral joy, his heart diftends
With gentle throws; and, thro' the tepid gleams-
Deep mufing, then he beft exerts his fong..
Ev'n Winter wild to him is full of blifs.
The mighty tempest, and the hoary waste,
Abrupt, and deep, stretch'd o'er the bury'd earth,
Awake to folemn thought. At night the skies,
Disclos'd, and kindled, by refining frost,
Pour every luftre on th' exalted eye.
A friend, a book, the ftealing hours fecure,
And mark them down for wisdom. With swift wing, O'er land and fea imagination roams ;.
Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind,
Elates his being, and unfolds his pow'rs ;
Or in his breaft heroic virtue burns.
The touch of kindred too and love he feels ;
The modeft eye, whose beams on his alone
Ecftatic fhine; the little strong embrace
Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck,
And emulous to pleafe him, calling forth
The fond parental foul. Nor purpose gay,
Amusement, dance, or fong, he fternly scorns;
For happiness and true philofophy
Are of the focial ftill, and fmiling kind.
This is the life which those who fret in guilt,
And guilty cities, never knew; the life,
Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt,
When angels dwelt, and God himself, with Man!
OH NATURE! all-fufficient! over all!
Inrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Snatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonders there,
World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profufely fcatter'd o'er the blue immense,
Shew me; their motions, periods, and their laws,
Give me to fcan; thro' the difclofing deep
Light my blind way: the min'ral ftrata there;
Thrust, blooming, thence the vegetable world ;
O'er that the rifing fyftem, more complex,
Of animals; and higher ftill, the mind,
The varied fcene of quick-compounded thought,
And where the mixing paffions endless shift ;
These ever open to my ravish'd eye;
A fearch, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust!
But if to that unequal; if the blood,
In fluggish ftreams about my heart, forbid
That beft ambition; under clofing fhades,
Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook,
And whisper to my dreams. From THEE begin,
Dwell all on THEE, with THEE conclude my fong;
And let me never never ftray from THEE!
The fubject propofed. Address to the Earl of WILMING-TON. First approach of Winter. According to the natural course of the feafon, various storms defcribed. Rain. Wind. Snow. The driving of the fnows A man perishing among them; whence reflections on the wants and miferies of human life. The wolves defcending from the Alps and Apennines. A winter-evening defcribed as fpent by philofophers; by the country people; in the city. Froft. A view of Winter within the polar Circle. A thaw. The whole concluding with moral reflections on a future ftate.
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