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That vision of endurance and repose.

And though to every draught of vital breath Renewed throughout the bounds of earth or ocean,

The melancholy gates of Death

Respond with sympathetic motion;

Though all that feeds on nether air,

Howe'er magnificent or fair,

Grows but to perish, and intrust

Its ruins to their kindred dust;

Yet, by the Almighty's ever-during care,
Her procreant vigils Nature keeps
Amid the unfathomable deeps;

And saves the peopled fields of earth
From dread of emptiness or dearth.
Thus, in their stations, lifting tow'rd the sky
The foliaged head in cloudlike majesty,
The shadow-casting race of trees survive :
Thus, in the train of Spring, arrive

Sweet flowers; what living eye hath viewed
Their myriads?- endlessly renewed,
Wherever strikes the sun's glad ray;
Where'er the subtle waters stray;
Wherever sportive breezes bend
Their course, or genial showers descend!
Mortals, rejoice! the very Angels quit
Their mansions unsusceptible of change,

Amid your pleasant bowers to sit,

And through your sweet vicissitudes to range!"

IV.

O, nursed at happy distance from the cares
Of a too-anxious world, mild pastoral Muse!
That, to the sparkling crown Urania wears,
And to her sister Clio's laurel wreath,

Prefer'st a garland culled from purple heath,
Or blooming thicket moist with morning dews;
Was such bright Spectacle vouchsafed to me?
And was it granted to the simple ear

Of thy contented votary

Such melody to hear!

Him rather suits it, side by side with thee,
Wrapped in a fit of pleasing indolence,

While thy tired lute hangs on the hawthorn-tree,
To lie and listen - till o'er-drowsèd sense
Sinks, hardly conscious of the influence -
To the soft murmur of the vagrant Bee.
A slender sound! yet hoary Time
Doth to the Soul exalt it with the chime
Of all his years; a company
Of ages coming, ages gone,
(Nations from before them sweeping,
Regions in destruction steeping,)
But every awful note in unison
With that faint utterance, which tells
Of treasure sucked from buds and bells,
For the pure keeping of those waxen cells;
Where She a statist prudent to confer
Upon the common weal; a warrior bold,
Radiant all over with unburnished gold,

And armed with living spear for mortal fight;

A cunning forager

That spreads no waste; a social builder; one
In whom all busy offices. unite

With all fine functions that afford delight -
Safe through the winter storm in quiet dwells!

V.

And is She brought within the power
Of vision? — o'er this tempting flower
Hovering until the petals stay

Her flight, and take its voice away!
Observe each wing!

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a tiny van!
The structure of her laden thigh,
How fragile! yet of ancestry
Mysteriously remote and high;
High as the imperial front of man;
The roseate bloom on woman's cheek;
The soaring eagle's curvèd beak;
The white plumes of the floating swan;
Old as the tiger's paw, the lion's mane
Ere shaken by that mood of stern disdain
At which the desert trembles. -

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- Humming Bee!

Thy sting was needless then, perchance unknown; The seeds of malice were not sown;

All creatures met in peace, from fierceness free, And no pride blended with their dignity.

Tears had not broken from their source;

Nor Anguish strayed from her Tartarean den; The golden years maintained a course

Not undiversified, though smooth and even;

We were not mocked with glimpse and shadow then;

Bright Seraphs mixed familiarly with men ;

And earth and stars composed a universal heaven!

1817.

XLVI.

DEVOTIONAL INCITEMENTS.

"Not to the earth confined,

Ascend to heaven."

WHERE will they stop, those breathing Powers,
The Spirits of the new-born flowers?
They wander with the breeze, they wind
Where'er the streams a passage find;
Up from their native ground they rise
In mute aërial harmonies;

From humble violet, modest thyme,
Exhaled, the essential odors climb,
As if no space below the sky

Their subtle flight could satisfy:

Heaven will not tax our thoughts with pride

If like ambition be their guide.

Roused by this kindliest of May showers, The spirit-quickener of the flowers,

That with moist virtue softly cleaves
The buds, and freshens the young leaves,
The birds pour forth their souls in notes
Of rapture from a thousand throats,
Here checked by too impetuous haste,
While there the music runs to waste
With bounty more and more enlarged,
Till the whole air is overcharged;
Give ear, O Man! to their appeal,
And thirst for no inferior zeal,
Thou, who canst think as well as feel.

Mount from the earth; aspire! aspire!
So pleads the town's cathedral quire,
In strains that from their solemn height
Sink, to attain a loftier flight;

While incense from the altar breathes
Rich fragrance in embodied wreaths;
Or, flung from swinging censer, shrouds
The taper-lights, and curls in clouds
Around angelic Forms, the still
Creation of the painter's skill,
That on the service wait concealed
One moment, and the next revealed.
-Cast off your bonds, awake, arise,
And for no transient ecstasies!
What else can mean the visual plea
Of still or moving imagery,·

The iterated summons loud,

Not wasted on the attendant crowd,

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