From cates ambrosial, and the nectar'd bowl,
He would abhorrent turn; and in dead night,
When Silence sleeps o'er all, be stunn'd with noise.
Let no presuming impious railer tax

Creative Wisdom, as if aught was form'd

In vain, or not for admirable ends.

Shall little haughty Ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?
As if upon a full-proportion'd dome,

On swelling columns heaved, the pride of art,
A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads

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An inch around, with blind presumption bold,
Should dare to tax the structure of the whole !
And lives the man, whose universal eye

Has swept at once the' unbounded scheme of things;

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Mark'd their dependence so, and firm accord,

As with unfaltering accent to conclude

That this availeth nought? Has any seen

The mighty chain of beings, lessening down

From INFINITE PERFECTION to the brink

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Of dreary nothing, (desolate abyss !)

From which astonish'd thought, recoiling, turns?

Till then alone let zealous praise ascend,

And hymns of holy wonder, to that POWER,

Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds,

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As on our smiling eyes his servant-sun.

Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways,
Upward and downward, thwarting and convolved,
The quivering nations sport; till, tempest-wing'd,
Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day.
Even so luxurious men, unheeding, pass
An idle summer life in fortune's shine,
A season's glitter! Thus they flutter on
From toy to toy, from vanity to vice;
Till, blown away by Death, Oblivion comes
Behind, and strikes them from the book of life.
Now swarms the village o'er the jovial mead :
The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil,
Healthful and strong; full as the summer-rose
Blown by prevailing suns, the ruddy maid,
Half-naked, swelling on the sight, and all
Her kindled graces burning o'er her cheek.

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Even stooping age is here; and infant-hands
Trail the long rake, or, with the fragrant load
O'ercharged, amid the kind oppression roll.
Wide flies the tedded grain; all in a row
Advancing broad, or wheeling round the field,
They spread the breathing harvest to the sun,
That throws refreshful round a rural smell:
Or, as they rake the green-appearing ground,
And drive the dusky wave along the mead,
The russet hay-cock rises thick behind,
In order gay while heard, from dale to dale,
Waking the breeze, resounds the blended voice
Of happy labour, love, and social glee.

Or rushing thence, in one diffusive band,
They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog
Compell'd, to where the mazy-running brook
Forms a deep pool; this bank abrupt and high,
And that fair-spreading in a pebbled shore.
Urged to the giddy brink, much is the toil,
The clamour much, of men, and boys, and dogs,
Ere the soft fearful people to the flood

Commit their woolly sides. And oft the swain,
On some impatient seizing, hurls them in:
Embolden'd then, nor hesitating more,

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Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing wave,

And panting labour to the farther shore.

Repeated this, till deep the well-wash'd fleece

Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt

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The trout is banish'd by the sordid stream;

Heavy, and dripping, to the breezy brow

Inly disturb'd, and wondering what this wild

Slow move the harmless race: where, as they spread
Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray,

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Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints

The country fill; and, toss'd from rock to rock,
Incessant bleatings run around the hills.
At last, of snowy white, the gather'd flocks
Are in the wattled pen innumerous press'd,
Head above head: and, ranged in lusty rows,
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears.
The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores,
With all her gay-dress'd maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious dignity enthroned,

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Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays
Her smiles, sweet-beaming, on her shepherd-king;
While the glad circle round them yield their souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.
Meantime, their joyous task goes on apace :
Some mingling stir the melted tar, and some,
Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side
To stamp his master's cipher, ready stand;
Others the' unwilling wether drag along;
And, glorying in his might, the sturdy boy
Holds by the twisted horns the' indignant ram.
Behold where bound, and of its robe bereft,
By needy man, that all-depending lord,
How meek, how patient, the mild creature lies!
What softness in its melancholy face,
What dumb complaining innocence appears!
Fear not, ye gentle tribes! 't is not the knife
Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you waved;
No, 't is the tender swain's well-guided shears,
Who, having now, to pay his annual care,
Borrow'd your fleece, to you a cumbrous load,
Will send you bounding to your hills again.

A simple scene! yet hence Britannia sees
Her solid grandeur rise: hence she commands
The' exalted stores of every brighter clime,
The treasures of the Sun without his rage:
Hence, fervent all, with culture, toil, and arts,
Wide glows her land: her dreadful thunder hence
Rides o'er the waves sublime, and now, even now,
Impending hangs o'er Gallia's humbled coast;
Hence rules the circling deep, and awes the world.
Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the Sun
Darts on the head direct his forceful rays.
O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye
Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all
From pole to pole is undistinguish'd blaze.
In vain the sight, dejected to the ground,
Stoops for relief; thence hot-ascending steams
And keen reflection pain. Deep to the root
Of vegetation parch'd, the cleaving fields
And slippery lawn an arid hue disclose,
Blast Fancy's blooms, and wither even the soul.
Echo no more returns the cheerful sound

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Of sharpening scythe: the mower, sinking, heaps
O'er him the humid hay, with flowers perfumed;
And scarce a chirping grasshopper is heard
Through the dumb mead. Distressful Nature pants.
The very streams look languid from afar;
Or, through the' unshelter'd glade, impatient, seem
To hurl into the covert of the grove.

All-conquering Heat, O intermit thy wrath!
And on my throbbing temples potent thus
Beam not so fierce! Incessant still you flow,
And still another fervent flood succeeds,
Pour'd on the head profuse. In vain I sigh,
And restless turn, and look around for night:
Night is far off; and hotter hours approach.
Thrice happy he who, on the sunless side
Of a romantic mountain, forest-crown'd,
Beneath the whole collected shade reclines!
Or in the gelid caverns, woodbine-wrought,
And fresh bedew'd with ever-spouting streams,
Sits coolly calm; while all the world without,
Unsatisfied and sick, tosses in noon!
Emblem instructive of the virtuous man,
Who keeps his temper'd mind serene and pure,

And every passion aptly harmonized,

Amid a jarring world with vice inflamed.

Welcome, ye shades! ye bowery thickets, hail!

Ye lofty pines! ye venerable oaks !

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Ye ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep!
Delicious is your shelter to the soul,

As to the hunted hart the sallying spring,

Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides
Laves, as he floats along the herbaged brink.
Cool, through the nerves, your pleasing comfort glides;
The heart beats glad; the fresh-expanded eye

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And ear resume their watch; the sinews knit ;

And life shoots swift through all the lighten'd limbs.
Around the' adjoining brook, that purls along

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The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock,
Now scarcely moving through a reedy pool,
Now starting to a sudden stream, and now
Gently diffused into a limpid plain;

A various group the herds and flocks compose,
Rural confusion! On the grassy bank

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Some ruminating lie; while others stand
Half in the flood, and often bending sip

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The circling surface. In the middle droops

The strong laborious ox, of honest front,

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Which incomposed he shakes; and from his sides

The troublous insects lashes with his tail,

Returning still. Amid his subjects safe,

Slumbers the monarch-swain; his careless arm

Thrown round his head, on downy moss sustain'd;
Here laid his scrip, with wholesome viands fill'd ;
There, listening every noise, his watchful dog.

Light fly his slumbers, if perchance a flight
Of angry gad-flies fasten on the herd;
That startling scatters from the shallow brook,
In search of lavish stream. Tossing the foam,
They scorn the keeper's voice, and scour the plain,
Through all the bright severity of noon;
While, from their labouring breasts, a hollow moan
Proceeding runs low-bellowing round the hills.

Oft in this season too the horse, provoked,
While his big sinews full of spirits swell,
Trembling with vigour, in the heat of blood,
Springs the high fence; and, o'er the field effused,
Darts on the gloomy flood, with steadfast eye,
And heart estranged to fear: his nervous chest,
Luxuriant and erect, the seat of strength,

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Bears down the' opposing stream: quenchless his thirst;

He takes the river at redoubled draughts,

And with wide nostrils, snorting, skims the wave.
Still let me pierce into the midnight depth

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Of yonder grove, of wildest, largest growth:
That, forming high in air a woodland choir,
Nods o'er the mount beneath. At every step,
Solemn and slow, the shadows blacker fall,
And all is awful listening gloom around.
These are the haunts of Meditation, these

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The scenes where ancient bards the' inspiring breath,
Ecstatic, felt; and, from this world retired,
Conversed with angels and immortal forms,
On gracious errands bent: to save the fall
Of Virtue struggling on the brink of vice;
In waking whispers, and repeated dreams,
To hint pure thought, and warn the favour'd soul

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