Into the guiltless breast, beneath the shade, Or thrown at large amid the fragrant hay; Nor ought besides of prospect, grove, or song, Dim grottoes, gleaming lakes, and fountain

clear.

Here too dwells simple truth; plain innocence; Unsullied beauty; sound unbroken youth, Patient of labour, with a little pleas'd; Health, ever blooming; unambitious toil; Calm contemplation, and poetic ease.

Let others brave the flood in quest of gain,
And beat for joyless months the gloomy wave.
Let such as deem it glory to destroy,
Rush into blood, the sack of cities seek;
Unpierc'd, exulting in the widow's wail,
The virgin's shriek, and infant's trembling cry.
Let some, far distant from their native soil,
Urg'd on by want, or harden'd avarice,
Find other lands beneath another sun.
Let this through cities work his eager way,
By legal outrage and establish'd guile,
The social sense extinct; and that feriment
Mad into tumult the seditious herd,

Or melt them down to slavery. Let these
Jusnare the wretched in the toils of law,
Fomenting discord, and perplexing right,
An iron race! and those of fairer front
But equal inhumanity, in courts,
Delusive pomp, and dark cabals delight:
Wreathe the deep bow, diffuse the lying smile,
And tread the weary labyrinth of state.
While he, from all the stormy passions free
That restless inen involve, bears, and but hears,
At distance safe, the human tempest roar,
Wrapt close in conscious peace. The fall of
kings,

The rage of nations, and the crush of states,
Move not the man, who, from the world escap'd,
In still retreats, and flowery solitudes,
To nature's voice attends from month to month,
And day to day, through the revolving year;
Admiring, sees her in her every shape;
Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart;
Takes what she lib'ral gives, nor thinks of more.
He, when young Spring protrudes the bursting
gems,
[gale

Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful
Into his freshened soul; her genial hours
He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows,
And not an opening blossom breathes in vain.
In summer he, bencath the living shade,
Such as o'er frigid Tempe wont to wave,
Or Hemus cool, reads what the muse, of these,
Perhaps, has in immortal numbers sung;
Or what she dictates writes; and oft, an eye
Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.
When Autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world,

O'er land and sea imagination roams;
Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind,
Elates his being, and unfolds his powers;
Or in his breast heroic virtue burns;
The touch of kindred too and love he feels;
The modest eye, whose beams on his alone
Ecstatic shine; the little strong embrace
Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck,
And emulons to please him, calling forth
The fond parental soul. Nor purpose gay,
Amusement, dance, or song, he sternly scorns;
For happiness and true philosophy

Are of the social still, and siniling 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-sufficient! over all!
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Suatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonders
there,

World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profusely scattered o'er the blue immense,
Show me; their motions, periods, and their
laws,

Give me to scau; through the disclosing deep
Light my blind way; the mineral strata there;
Thrust, blooming, thence, the vegetable world;
O'er that the rising system, more complex,
Of animals; and higher still, the mind,
Thevaried scene of quick-compounded thought,
And where the mixing passious endless shift;
These ever open to my ravish'd eye;

A search, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust!
But if to that unequal; if the blood,
In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid
That best ambition; under closing shades,
Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook,
And whisper to my dreams. From Thee begin,
Dwell all on Thee, with Thee conclude my

song;

And let me never, never stray from Thee!

Each to his home retire; save those that love
To take their pastime in the troubled air,
Or skimming flutter round the dimply pool.
The cattle from th' untasted fields returo,
And ask, with meaning low, their wonted stalls;
Or ruminate in the contiguous shade.
Thither the household feathery people crowd,
The crested cock, with all his female train,
Pensive, and dripping; while the cottage hind
Hangs o'er th' enlivening blaze, and taleful
there

Recounts his simple. frolic: much he talks, And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that blows

Without, and rattles on his bumble roof.

Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swell'd,

And the mix'd ruin of its banks o'erspread,
At last the rous'd-up river pours along :
Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes,
From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild,
Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding
far;

Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads,
Calin, sluggish, silent, till again, constrain'd
Between two mecting bills, it bursts away,
Where rocks and woods o'erbang the turbid
stream;

There gathering triple force, rapid, and deep, It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders

thro'.

Nature! great parent! whose unceasing hand Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year, How mighty, how majestic, are thy works! With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul! That sees astonish'd! and astonish'd sings! Ye too, ye winds! that now begin to blow With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you. Where are your stores, ye powerful beings!

say,

Where your acrial magazines reserv'd,

To swell the brooding terrors of the storm?
In what far distant region of the sky,
Hush'd in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm?
When from the pallid sky the sun descends,
With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb
Uncertain wanders, stain'd red fiery streaks
Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds
Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet
Which master to obey; while rising slow,
Blank, in the leaden-colour'd east, the moon
Wears a wan circle round her blunted horus.
Seen through the turbid fluctuating air,
The stars obtuse emit a shivered ray;
Or frequent seem to shoot athwart the gloom,
And long behind them trail the whitening blaze.
Suatch'd in short eddies, plays the wither'd

leaf;
And on the flood the dancing feather floats.

With broadened nostrils to the sky up turu'd,
The conscious heifer sufis the stormy gale.
Even as the matron, at her nightly task,
With pensive labour draws the flaxen thread,
The wasted taper and the crackling flame
Foretel the blast. But chief the plumy race,
The tenants of the sky, its changes speak.
Retiring from the downs, where all day long
They pick'd their scanty fare, a blackening train
Of clamorous rooks thick urge their weary
flight,

And seek the closing shelter of the grove;
Assiduous, in his bower, the wailing owl
Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high
Wheels from the deep, and screams along the
land.
[wing
Loud shrieks the soaring hern; and with wild
The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds.
Ocean, unequal press'd, with broken tide
And blind commotion heaves; while from the
shore,

Eat into caverns by the restless wave,
And forest rustling mountains, comes a voice,
That solemu sounding bids the world prepare.
Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst,
And hurls the whole precipitated air,
Down in a torrent. On the passive main
Descends the ethercal force, and with strong

gust

Turns from its bottom the discolour'd deep. Through the black night that sits immense

around,

Lash'd into foam, the fierce conflicting brine
Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn:
Meantime the mountain-bilows, to the clouds
In dreadful tumult swell'd, surge above surge,
Burst in chaos with tremendous roar,
And anchor'd navies from their stations drive,
Wild as the winds across the howling waste
Of mighty waters: now the inoated wave
Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot
Into the secret chambers of the deep,
The wintry Baltic thundering o'er their head.
Emerging thence again, before the breath
Of full-exerted heaven they wing their course,
And dart on distant coasts; if some sharp rock,
Or shoal insidious, break not their career,
And in loose fragments fling them floating
round.

Nor less at land the loosen'd tempest reigns: The mountain thunders; and its study sons Stoop to the bottom of the rocks they shade. Lone on the midnight steep, and all aghast, The dark way faring stranger breathless toils, And, often falling, climbs against the blast. Low waves the rooted forest, vex'd, and sheds What of its tarnish'd honours yet remain; Dash'd down, and scatter'd, by the tearing wind's

Assiduous fary, its gigantic limbs.
Thus struggling through the dissipated grove,
The whirling tempest raves along the plain;
And on the cottage thatch'd, or lordly roof,
Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base.
Sleep frighted flies, and round the rocking
domie,

For entrance eager, howls the savage blast.
Then too, they say, through all the burthen'd
air,
[sighs,
Long groans are heard, shrill sound and distaut
That, utter'd by the demon of the night,
Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death.
Huge uproar lords it wide. The clouds com-
mix'd

With stars swift gliding sweep along the sky.
All nature reels. Till nature's King, who oft
Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone,
And on the wings of the careering wind
Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm :
Then straight air, sea, and earth, are hush'd at

once.

As yet 'tis miduight deep. The weary clouds, Slow meeting, mingle into solid gloom. Kow, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep, Let me associate with the serious night, And contemplation her sedate compeer; Let me shake off th' intrusive cares of day, And lay the meddling seuses all aside.

Where now, ye lying vanities of life! Ye ever-tempting ever cheating train! Where are you now? and what is your amount? Texation, disappointment, and remorse. Sad, sickening thought! And yet deluded man, A scene of crude disjointed visions past, And broken slumbers, rises still resolv`d, With new-flush'd hopes, to run the giddy round.

Father of light and life! thou Good Supreme! O teach me what is good! teach me Thyself; Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, From every low pursuit! and feed my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure!

Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!

The keener tempests rise: and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb A vapoury deluge lics, to snow congeal`d. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along; And the sky saddens with the gather'd storm. Through the hush'd air the whitening shower

descends,

At first thin-wavering; till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day,
With a continual flow. The cherish'd fields
Put on their winter robe of purest white.
Tis brightness all; save where the new snow
melts

Along the mazy current. Low, the woods Bow their hoar head; and ere the lauguid

sun

Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill.
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the labourer of
Stands cover'd o'er with snow, and then de
mands

The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
| Tam'd by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone
The red breast, sacred to the household gods
Wisely regardful of th' embroiling sky,
In joyless fields, and thorny thickets, leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half afraid, he first
Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the
floor,

Eyes all the smiling family askance,
And pecks, and starts, and wonders where be is:
Till more familiar grown, the table crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares, and
dogs,

And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
Urg'd on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening
earth,
[pers'd,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dis-
Dig for the wither'd herb through heaps of
(kind,

snow.

Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be Baffle the raging year, and fill their pens With food at will; lodge them below the storm, And watch them strict: for from the bellowing

east,

In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing Sweeps up the burden of whole wintry plains At one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks, Hid in the hollow of two neighbouring hills, The billowy tempest whelms; till, upward

urg'd,

The valley to a shining mountain swells,
Tipt with a wreath high curling in the sky.

As thus the snows arise; and foul, and fierce,
All Winter drives along the darkened air;
In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other bills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, sbag the trackless plain :
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray;
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps

of home

Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul!
What black despair, what horror fills his heart!
When for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track, and blest abode of man ;
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, bowling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of covered pits unfathomably deep,

A dire descent! beyond the power of frost;
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,

Unbounded passions, madness, guilt, remorse; Whence tumbled headlong from the height of

life,

They furnish matter for the tragic manse.
Even in the vale where wisdom loves to dwe
With friendship, peace, and contemplation
join'd,

How many, rack'd with honest passions, droop
In deep retir'd distress. How many stand
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends,
And point the parting anguish. Thought foud

nan

Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills,
That one incessant struggle render life,
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,

unknown,

What water, of the still unfrozen spring,

La the loose marsh or solitary lake,

Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.

sinks

Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends museen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold;
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows, a stiffened corse!
Stretched out and bleaching in the northern
blast.

Ah! little think the gay licentious proud, Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround; [wirth,

They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste;
Ah! little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment, death
And all the sad variety of pain.
How many sink in the devouring flood,
Or more devouring Aame. How many bleed,
By shameful variance betwixt man and man.
How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms;
Shut from the common air, and common use
Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery. Sore pierc'd by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty. How many shake

And here can I forget the generous band”, Who touch'd with human woe, redressive

search'd

Into the horrors of the gloomy jail?
Unpitied, and unheard, where misery moans;
Where sickness pines; where thirts and hunger.
burn,

And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice,
While in the land of liberty, the land
Whose every street and public meeting glow
With open freedom, little tyrants rag'd:
Snatch'd the lean morsel from the starving
mouth;

Tore from cold wintry limbs the tatter'd weed a
Even robb'd them of the last of comfort sy

sleep;

The free-born Briton to the dungeon chain'd, Or, as the lust of cruelty prevail'd,

At pleasure mark'd him with inglorious stripes; And crush'd out lives, by secret barbarous ways,

That for their country would have toild, or bled.

O great design, if executed well,
With patient care, and wisdom-temper'd zcal.
Ye sons of mercy! yet resume the search;
Drag forth the legal monsters into light,
Wrench from their hands ogpresion's iron rod,
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give.
Much still untonch'd remains; in this dark

age,

Much is the patriot's weeding haud requir'd, The toils of law (what dark insidious mea Have cumbrous added to perplex the truth,

* The Jail Committee, in the year 1729.