Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
Attuning all their paffions into love;
Where friendship full-exerts her fofteft power,
Perfect esteem enliven'd by defire
Ineffable, and fympathy of foul;
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence: for nought but love
Can answer love, and render blifs fecure,
Let him, ungenerous, who, alone intent
To blefs himself, from fordid parents buys
The loathing virgin, in eternal care,
Well-merited, confume his nights and days:
Let barbarous nations, whofe inhuman love
Is wild defire, fierce as the funs they feel;
Let eastern tyrants, from the light of Heaven
Seclude their bofom - slaves, meanly poffefs'd
Of a meer, lifeless, violated form:
While those whom love cements in holy faith,
And equal transport, free as Nature live,
Difdaining fear. What is the world to them,
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonfenfe all !
Who in each other clafp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish;
Something than beauty dearer, should they look
Or on the mind, or mind-illumin'd face;
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love,
The richest bounty of indulgent HEAVEN.
Meantime a smiling offspring rifes round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human bloffom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shews fome new charm,
The father's luftre, and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reafon grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an affiduous care.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh inftruction o'er the mind,
To breathe th' enlivening fpirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
Oh speak the joy! ye, whom the fudden tear
Surprizes often, while you look around,
And nothing ftrickes your eye but fights of blifs,
All various Nature preffing on the heart:
An elegant fufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Eafe and alternate labour, ufeful life,
Progreffive virtue, and approving HEAVEN.
These are the matchlefs joys of virtuous love;
And thus their moments fly. The Seafons thus,
As ceafelefs round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy; and confenting SPRING
Sheds her own rofy garland on their heads:
Till evening comes at laft, ferene and mild;
When after the long vernal day of life,
Enamour'd more, as more remembrance fwells
With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they fink in focial sleep;
Together freed, their gentle fpirits fly
To scenes where love and blifs immortal reign.
The fubject propofed. Invocation. Address to Mr. DODINGTO N. An introductory reflection on the motion of the heavenly bodies; whence the fucceffion of the feafons. As the face of Nature in this feafon is almost uniform, the progress of the poem is a defcription of a fummer's day. The dawn. Sun-rifing. Hymn to the fun. Forenoon. Summer infects defcribed. Hay-making. Sheepshearing. Noon-day. A woodland retreat. Grou pe of herds and flocks. A folemn grove. How it affects a contemplative mind. A cataract, and rude Scene. View of Summer in the torrid zone. Storm of thunder and lightning. A tale. The ftorm over, a ferene afternoon. Bathing. Hour of walking. Tranfition to the profpect of a rich well-cultivated country; which introduces a panegyric on GREAT BRITAIN. Sun-fet. Evening. Night. Summer meteors. A comet. The whole concluding with the praise of philofophy.
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; 10
And on the dark-green grafs, befide the brink
Of haunted ftream, 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 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 soul.·
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 fenfe,
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 juft applaufe.
WITH what an awful world -revolving power
Were first th' 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 courfe;
To the kind-temper'd change oft night and day,
And of the feafons ever ftealing round,
Minutely faithful: Such 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 first faint gleaming in the dappled eaft:
Till far o'er ether fpreads the widening glow;
And, from before the luftre of her face,
White break the clouds away. With quicken'd step,
Brown Night retires: Young Day pours in apace,
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