miums bestowed by the author on animals-Instances of man's extravagant praise of man--The groans of

the creation shall have an end-A view taken of the restoration of all things-An invocation and an invitation of Him who shall bring it to pass-The retired man vindicated from the charge of uselessness-Conclusion.

THERE is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased
With melting airs, or martial. brisk, or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,
That in a few short moments I retrace
(As in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many years.
Short as in retrospect the journey seems,
It seem'd not always short; the rugged path,
And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn.
Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length.
Yet, feeling present evils, while the past
Faintly impress the mind, or not at all,
How readily we wish time spent revoked,
That we might try the ground again where once
(Through inexperience, as we now perceive)
We miss'd that happiness we might have found!
Some friend is gone, perhaps his son's best friend.
A father, whose authority. in show
When most severe, and mustering all its force,
Was but the graver countenance of love: [lower.
Whose favor, like the clouds of spring, might
And utter now and then an awful voice,
But had a blessing in its darkest frown,
Threatening at once and nourishing the plant.
We loved, but not enough, the gentle hand
That rear'd us. At a thoughtless age, allured
By every gilded folly. we renounced
His sheltering side. and wilfully forewent
That converse. which we now in vain regret,
How gladly would the man recall to life
The boy's neglected sire! a mother too.
That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still,
Might he demand them at the gates of death.
Sorrow has, since they went subdued and tamed
The playful humor; he could now endure
(Himself grown sober in the vale of tears)
And feel a parent's presence no restraint.
But not to understand a treasure's worth
Till time has stolen away the slighted good,
Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the world the wilderness it is.
The few that pray at all pray oft amiss,
And seeking grace to improve the prize they
Would urge a wiser suit than asking more.

[hold.

The night was winter in his roughest mood; The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon Upon the southern side of the slant hills. And where the woods fence off the north.ern blast, The season smiles. resigning all its rage. And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue Without a cloud. and white without a speck The dazzling splendor of the scene below. Again the harmony comes o'er the vale;

And through the trees I view the embattled tower
Whence all the music. I again perceive
The soothing influence of the wafted strains,
And settle in soit musings as I tread
The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms,
Whose outspread branches overarch the glade.
The roof though moveable through all its length
As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed,
And, intercepting in their silent tall
The frequent flakes. has kept a path for me.
No noise is here or none that hinders thosht.
The redbreast warbles still. but is content
With slender notes, and more that half sup-
press'd:

1

Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice,
That tinkle in the wither'd leaves below.
Stillness accompanied with sounds so scft,
Charms more than silence. Meditation here
May think down hours to moments. Here the
May give a useful lesson to the head, [hear
And Learning wiser grow without his books.
Knowledge and Wisdom far from being one,
Have oft times no connexion. Knowledge des
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in ininds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass.
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds,
Till smooth'd, and squared, and fitted to its
place,

Does but encumber whom it seems to er ih. Knowledge is proud that he has lead so much;

Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells,
By which the magic art of shrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall'd.
Some to the fascination of a name [style
Surrender judgment hoodwink'd. Some the
Infatuates. and through labyrinth and wilds
Of error leads them. by a tune entranced.
While sloth seduces more. too weak to bear
The insupportable fatigue of thought.
And swallowing there fore without pause or choice
The total grist unsifted husks and all.
But trees, and rivulets whose rapid course
Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer,
And sheepwalks populous with bleating lambs,
And lanes in which the primrose ere her time
Peeps through the moss that clothes the haw-
thorn root.

Where now the vital energy that moved.
While summer was the pure and subtle lymph
Through the imperceptible meandering veins
Or lear and flower? It sleeps; and the icy
Of unprolific winter has impress'd [touch
A cold stagnation on the intestine tide.
But let the months go round, a few short months,
And all shall be restored. These naked shoots,
Barren as lances, among which the wind
Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes,
Shall put their graceful foliage on again,
And more aspiring, and with ampler spread,
Shall boast new charms, and more than they
have lost.

[all:

Then each, in its peculiar honors clad,
Shall publish, even to the distant eye,
Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich
In streaming gold; syringa, ivory pure;
The scentless and the scented rose; this red,
And of an humbler growth. the other* tall,
And throwing up into the darkest gloom
Of neighboring cypress, or more sable yew,
Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf
That the wind severs from the broken wave;
The lac. various in array, now white.
Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set
With purple spikes pyramidal, as if,
Studious of ornament, yet unresolved
Which hue she most approved, she chose them
Copions of flowers the woodbine, pale and wan,
But well compensating her sickly looks
With never-cloying odors, early and late;
Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm
of flowers, like flies clothing her slender rods,
That scarce a leaf appears; mezereon too,
Though leafless, well attired, and thick beset
With blushing wreaths, investing every spray;
Althea with the purple eye; the broom,
Yellow and bright. as bullion unalloy'd
Her blossoms; and luxuriant above all
The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets.
The deep dark green of whose unvarnish'd
leaf

Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more
The bright profusion of her scatter'd stars.-
These have been, and these shall be in their day;
And all this uniform, uncolor'd scene
Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load,
And flush into variety again.

From dearth to plenty, and from death to life,
Is nature's progress, when she lectures man
In heavenly truth; evincing, as she makes
The grand transition, that there lives and works
A soul in all things, and that soul is God.
The beauties of the wilderness are his,
That make so gay the solitary place,
Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms,
That cultivation glories in, are his.
He sets the bright procession on its way,
And marshals all the order of the year;
He marks the bounds which Winter may not pass,
And blunts his pointed fury; in its case,
Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ,
Uninjured, with inimitable art;

And, ere one flowery season fades and di s
Designs the blooming wonders of the next
Some say, that in the origin of things,
When all creation started into birth,
The infant elements received a law, [force
From which they swerve not since; that under

*The Guelder Rose.

Of that controling ordinance they move,
And need not his immediate hand. who first
Prescribed their course, to regulate it now.
Thus dream they. and contrive to save a God
The incumbrance of his own concerns, and spars
The great Artificer of all that moves
The stress of a continual act, the pain
Of unremitted vigilance and care,
As too laborious and severe a task.
So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems,
To span omnipotence, and measure might,
That knows no measure, by the scanty rule
And standard of his own, that is to-day,
And is not ere to-morrow's sun go down.
But how should matter occupy a charge,
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law

So vast in its demands, unless impell'd
To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force,
And under pressure of some conscious cause
The Lord of all, himself through all diffused,
Sustains and is the life of all that lives.
Nature is but a name for an effect,

Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire,
By which the mighty process is maintain'd.
Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight
Slow circling ages are his transient days;
Whose work is without labor; whose designs
No flaw deforms. no difficulty thwarts;
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.
Him blind antiquity profaned. not served,
With self-taught rites, and under various names
Female and male. Pomona, Pales, Pan,
And Flora, and Verturanus; peopling earth
With tutelary goddesses and gods
That were not; and commending as they would
To each some province, garden field. or grove.
But all are under one. One spirit. His
Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows,
Rules universal nature. Not a flower
But shows some touch. in freckle, streak, or stain,
Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odors, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,
In grains as countless as the seaside sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds
Of flavor or of scent in fruit or flower,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a present God.
His presence, who made all so fair, perceived
Makes all still fairer. As with him no scene
Is dreary. so with him all seasons please.
Though winter had been none, had man beer
true,
And earth be punish'd for its tenant's sake,
Yet not in vengeance; as this smiling sky,
So soon succee ling such an angry night,
And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream
Recovering fast its liquid music, prove. [tuned

Who then. that has a mind well strung and
To contemplation, and within his reach
A scene so friendly to his favorite task,
Would waste attention at the chequer'd board,
His host of wooden warriors to and fro
Marching and countermarching, with an eye
As fix'd as marble, with a forehead ridged
And furrow'd into storms, and with a hand
Trembling, as if eternity were hung
In balance on his conduct of a pin?
Nor envies he aught more their idle sport,

Who pant with application misapplied
To trivial joys, and pushing ivory balls
Across a velvet level. feel a joy

Akin to rapture. when the bauble finds
Its destined goal of difficult access.

Nor deems he wiser him, who gives his noon
To miss, the mercer's plague. from shop to shop
Wandering, and littering with unfolded silks
The polish'd counter, and approving none,
Or promising with smiles to call again.
Nor him who, by his vanity seduced.
And soothed into a dream that he discerns
The difference of a Guido from a daub,
Frequents the crowded auction: station'd there
As duly as the Langford of the show,
With glass at eye, and catalogue in hand,
And tongue accomplish'd in the fulsome cant
And pedantry that coxcombs learn with ease:
Oft as the price-deciding hammer falls,
He notes it in his book. then raps his box,
Swears 'tis a bargain, rails at his hard fate
That he has let it pass-but never bids.

Here unmolested, through whatever sign
The sun proceeds I wander. Neither mist,
Nor freezing sky nor sultry, checking me,
Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy.
F'en in the spring and playtime of the year,
That calls the unwonted villager abroad
With all her little ones. a sportive train,
To gather kingcups in the yellow mead,
And prink their hair with daisies or to pick
A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook,
These shades are all my own. The timorous
hare.

Grown so familiar with her frequent guest,
Scarce shuns me; and the stockdove unalarm'd
Sits cooing in the pine-tree. nor suspends
His long love-ditty for my near approach.
Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm,
That age or injury has hollow'd deep.
Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves,
He has outslept the winter, ventures forth
To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun,
The squirrel, flippant pert, and full of play:
He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird,
Ascends the neighboring beech; there whisks
his brush,

And perks his ears, and stamps. and cries aloud,
With all the prettiness of feign'd alarm,
And anger insignificantly fierce.

The heart is hard in nature, and unfit
For human fellowship as being void
Or sympathy, and therefore dead alike
To love and friendship both, that is not pleased
With sight of animals enjoying life.
Nor feels their happiness augnent his own.
The bourding fawn. that darts across the glade
Where none pursues, through mere delight of
heart,

And spirits buoyant with excess of glee;
The horse as wanton, and almost as fleet.
That skims the spacious meadow at full speed.
Then stops and snorts, and. throwing high his
heels.

Sta ts to the voluntary race again;
The very kine that gambol at high noon.
The total herd receiving first from one
That leads the dance a surons to be gay.
Though wild their strange vagaries and uncouth
Their efforts, yet resolved with one consent
To give such act and utterance as they may
"o ecstacy too big to be suppress'd-

These, and a thousand images of bliss,
With which kind Nature graces every scene,
Where cruel man defeats not her design,
Impart to the benevolent who wish
All that are capable of pleasure pleased,
A far superior happiness to theirs,
The comfort of a reasonable joy.

Man scarce had risen, obedient to His call Who form'd him from the dust, his future grave. When he was crown'd as never king was since. God set the diadem upon his head,

And angel choirs attended. Wondering stood
The new-made monarch. while before han pass'd,
All happy, and all perfect in their kind. [haunts
The creatures, summoned from their various
To see their sovereign, and confess his sway.
Vast was his empire, absolute his power,
Or bounded only by a law, whose force
'Twas his sublimest privilege to feel
And own, the law of universal love.
He ruled with meekness, they obeyed with joy:
No cruel purpose lurk'd within his heart,
And no distrust of his intent in theirs.
So Eden was a scene of harmless sport,
Where kindness on his part, who rules the whole,
Begat a tranquil confidence in all,
And fear as yet was not. nor cause to fear.
But sin marr'd all; and the revolt of man,
That source of evils not exhausted yet,
Was punish'd with revolt of his from him.
Garden of God, how terrible the change [heart
Thy groves and lawns then witness'd! Every
Each animal, of every name, conceived
A jealousy and an instinctive fear,
And. conscious of some danger, either fled
Precipitate the loathed abode of man,
Or growl'd defiance in such angry sort.
As taught him too to tremble in his turn.
Thus harmony and family accord
Were driven from Paradise; and in that hour
The seeds of cruelty, that since have swell'd
To such gigantic and enormous growth.
Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil.
Hence date the persecution and the pain
That man indicts on all inferior kinds,

gardless of their plaints. To make him sport To granty the frenzy of his wrath, Or his base gluttony, are causes good And just in his account. why bird and beast Should suffer torture, and the streams be dyed With blood of their inhabitants impaled. Earth groans beneath the burden of a war Waged with defenceless innocence, while he, Not satisfied to prey on all around, Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangs Needless, and first torments ere he devours. Now happiest they that occupy the scenes The most remote from his abhorr'd resort, Whom once. as delegate of God on earth, They fear'd, and as his perfect image loved. The wilderness is theirs, with all its caves, Its hollow glens. its thickets, and its plains, Unvisited by man. There they are free, And howl and roar as likes them. uncontroll'd; Nor ask his leave to slumber or to play. Woe to the tyrant, if he dare intrude Within the confines of their wild domain: The lion tells him-I am monarch here! And if he spare him. spares him on the terms Of royal mercy and through generous scorn To rend a victim trembling at his foot. In measure, as by force of instinct drawn.