And every beauty, delicate or bold,
Obvious or more remote with livelier

sense,

Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.

TUTOR'd by thee, hence POETRY

exalts

Her voice to ages; and informs the

page'

1755 With music, image, sentiment, and thought, Never to die! the treasure of mankind! Their highest honour, and their truest joy!

WITHOUT thee what were unenlightened
Man?

A savage roaming thro' the woods and

wilds,

1760 In quest of prey; and with th' unfashioned

furr

Rough-clad; devoid of every finer art,
And elegance of life. Nor happiness
Domestic, mix'd of tenderness and care,
Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss, 1765
Nor guardian law were his; nor various

skill

To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool
Mechanic; nor the heaven-conducted prow
Of navigation bold, that fearless braves

The burning line, or dares the wintry pole;

1770

Mother severe of infinite delights!
Nothing, save rapine, indolence, and guile,
And woes on woes, a still-revolving train!
Whose horrid circle had made human life
Than non-existence worse: but, taught by

thee,

1775

Ours are the plans of policy, and peace;
To live like brothers, and conjunctive all
Embellish life. While thus laborious crouds
Ply the tough oar, PHILOSOPHY directs
The ruling helm; or like the liberal breath 1780
Of potent heaven, invisible, the sail
Swells out, and bears th' inferior world along.

NOR to this evanescent speck of earth Poorly confin'd, the radiant tracts on high Are her exalted range; intent to gaze 1785 Creation thro'; and, from that full complex Of never-ending wonders, to conceive Of the SOLE BEING right, who spoke the

Word,

And Nature mov'd compleat. With inward

view,

Thence on th' ideal kingdom swift she

turns

1790 Her eye; and instant, at her powerful glance, Th' obedient phantoms vanish or appear;

Compound, divide, and into order shift, Each to his rank, from plain perception up

To the fair forms of fancy's fleeting train: 1795 To reason then, deducing truth from truth;; And notion quite abstract; where first begins The world of spirits, action all, and life

Unfettered, and unmix'd. But here the cloud, So wills ETERNAL

PROVIDENCE,

deep.

sits

1800

Enough for us to know that this dark state,
In wayward passions lost, and vain pursuits,
This Infancy of Being, cannot prove
The final issue of the works of GoD,
By boundless Love and perfect WISDOM
form'd,

And ever rising with the rising mind.

1805

AUTUMN.

AUTUMN.

K

The ARGUMENT.

Reflexions in Reaping. A Shooting and

The subject proposed. Addressed to Mr. ONSLOW. A prospect of the fields ready for harvest. praise of industry rais'd by that view. tale relative to it. A harvest storm. hunting, their barbarity. Wall-fruit. A vineyard.

A view of an orchard. A description of fogs, whence

a

frequent in the latter part of Autumn: digression, enquiring into the rise of fountains nnd rivers. Birds of season considered, that now shift their habitation. The prodigious number of them that cover the northern and western isles of ScOTLAND. Hence a view of the country. A prospect of the discoloured, fading woods. After a gentle dusky day, moonlight. Autumnal meteors. Morning: to which succeeds calm, pure, sun-shiny day, such as usually the season. The harvest being gathered in, the country dissolv'd in joy. The whole concludes with a panegyric on a philosophical country life.

shuts up