From thy fix'd ferious 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 Mufe's early friend, In whom the human graces all unite : Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart; Genius, and wifdom; the gay focial sense, By decency chaftis'd; goodness 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 deferve thy just applause. With what an awful world revolving power Were first 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, matchlefs, in their course; To the kind-temper'd change of night and day, And of the feafons ever ftealing round,
Minutely faithful: fuch TH' ALL-PERFECT HAND! That pois'd, impels, and rules the steady 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 first faint-gleaming in the dappled east : Till far o'er ether fpreads the widening glow; And, from before the luftre of her face,
White break the clouds away. With quickened ftep, Brown Night retires: young Day pours in apace, And opens all the lawny profpect wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain's mifty top, Swell on the fight, and brighten with the dawn. Blue, thro' the dufk, the fmoaking currents fhine ;: And from the bladed field the fearful hare Limps, awkward: while along the foreft-glade The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze At early paffenger. Mufic awakes, The native voice of undiffembled 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 ;
London Pub by Cadell & Davies. Strand Nov 1803.
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 blufhful face; and earth, and fkies, All-fmiling, to his hot dominion leaves.
Hence, let me hafte into the mid-wood fhade, 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,
And from the crowded fold, in order, drives His flock, to taste the verdure of the morn. Falfely luxurious, will not Man awake; And, fpringing from the bed of floth, enjoy The cool, the fragrant, and the filent hour, To meditation due and facred fong? For is there aught in fleep can charm the wife? To lie in dead oblivion, lofing half
The fleeting moments of too fhort a life; Total extinction of th' enlightened foul! Or elfe to feverish vanity alive,
Wildered, and toffing thro' diftemper'd dreams? Who would in fuch a gloomy ftate remain Longer than Nature craves; when every Mufe And every blooming pleasure wait without, To blefs the wildly-devious morning-walk? But yonder comes the powerful King of Day, Rejoicing in the caft. The leffening cloud, The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow Illum'd with fluid gold, his near approach Betoken glad. Lo! now, apparent all, Aflant the dew-bright earth, and coloured air, He looks in boundless majefty abroad; And sheds the fhining day, that burnifh'd plays On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams,
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