Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks :
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter, awful Thou ! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled.
Majestic darkness ! on the whirlwind's wing,
Riding sublime, Thou bidd’st the world adore,
And humblest Nature with Thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine
Deep felt, in these appear ! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined ;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole ;
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ;
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth ;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend ! join, every living soul, Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, In adoration join; and, ardent, raise One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales, Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes ; 0, talk of Him in solitary glooms, Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely-waving pine Fills the brown shade with a religious awe. And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, · Who shake the astonished world, lift high to Heaven The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills; And let me catch it as I muse along. Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound ; Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale; and thou, majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound His stupendous praise; whose greater voice Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, In mingled clouds to Him; whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in Heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
· Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image bere below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On Nature write with every beam His praise.
10. CHAMOUNY.-S. T. Coleridge. Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star In his steep course ? — so long he seems to pause On thy bald, awful front, O sovereign Blanc ; The Arvé and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form, Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines How silently! Around thee and above, Deep is the air, and dark; substantial black, An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge! But, when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity. o dread and silent mount ! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer, I worshipped the Invisible alone. Yet, like some sweet, beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy, – Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing — there, As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven! Awake, my soul! Not only passive praise Thou owest ; not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks, and silent ecstasy. Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake, Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn. Thou, first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale ! 0! struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink
Companion of the morning star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald, wake! 0 wake! and utter praise !
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ?
And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jaggéd rocks,
Forever shattered, and the same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam ?
And who commanded, and the silence came, -
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest”?
Ye ice-falls ! ye, that, from the mountain's brow,
Adown enormous ravines slope amain,
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who with living flowers
Of loveliest blue spread garlands at your feet? -
“ God!” let the torrents, like a shout of Nations,
Answer : and let the ice-plains echo, “God!”
God!” sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, And, in their perilous fall, shall thunder, “God!” Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! Ye signs and wonders of the elements ! Utter forth “God !” and fill the hills with praise. Thou, too, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast Thou, too, again, stupendous mountain! thou That as I raise my head, a while bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, To rise before me
rise, O ever rise! Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth! Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to Heaven,
Great hierarch, tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell you rising sun,
“ Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.”
11. THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. - Alexander Pope.
VITAL spark of heavenly flame,
Quit, O, quit this mortal frame !
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
O, the pain, the bliss, of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!
Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away;
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath ?
Tell me, my soul! can this be death?
The world recedes, - it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring.
Lend, lend your wings! I mount, I fly!
O Grave ! where is thy victory?
O death! where is thy sting ?
LIFE BEYOND THE TOMB. - James Beattie. Born, 1735 ; died, 1803.
Such is the destiny of all on earth :
So flourishes and fades majestic Man;
Fair is the bud his vernal morn brings forth,
And fostering gales a while the nursling fan.
O smile, ye Heavens, serene! Ye mildews wan,
Ye blighting whirlwinds, spare his balmy prime,
Nor lessen of his life the little span.
Borne on the swift though silent wings of Time,
Old Age comes on apace, to ravage all the clime.
And be it so. Let those deplore their doom,
Whose hope still grovels in this dark sojourn;
But lofty souls, who look beyond the tomb,
Can smile at Fate, and wonder how they mourn.
Shall Spring to these sad scenes no more return?
Is yonder wave the Sun's eternal bed ?
Soon shall the Orient with new lustre burn,
And Spring shall soon her vital influence shed,
Again attune the grove, again adorn the mead.
Shall I be left, forgotten in the dust,
When Fate, relenting, lets the flower revive ? Shall Nature's voice, to Man alone unjust,
Bid him, though doomed to perish, hope to live?
Is it for this fair Virtue oft must strive
With disappointment, penury, and pain ?
No! Heaven's immortal Spring shall yet arrive,
And man's majestic beauty bloom again,
Bright through the eternal year of Love's triumphant reiga.
13. FORGIVENESS.
WHEN on the fragrant sandal-tree
The woodman's axe descends,
And she who bloomed so beauteously
Beneath the keen stroke bends,
Een on the edge that wrought her death
Dying she breathed her sweetest breath,
As if to token, in her fall,
Peace to her foes, and love to all.
How hardly man this lesson learns,
To smile, and bless the hand that spurns;
To see the blow, to feel the pain,
But render only love again!
This spirit not to earth is given,
One had it, but he came from Heaven.
Reviled, rejected and betrayed,
No curse he breathed, no 'plaint he made,
But when in death's deep pang he sighed,
Prayed for his murderers, and died.
14. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. — Philip Doddridge. Born, 1702 ; died, 1751.
“Live while you live,” the epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the present day;
“ Live while you live,” the Christian preacher cries,
“And give to God each moment as it flies.”
Lord ! in my view, let both united be;
live to pleasure, while I live to thee.
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