In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground!
THE pale defcending year, yet pleafing ftill,
A gentler mood infpires; for now the leaf
Inceffant ruftles from the mournful grove;
Oft startling fuch as, ftudious, walk below,
And flowly circles thro' the waving air.
But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge ftreams;
Till choak'd, and matted with the dreary fhower,
The forest-walks, at every rifing gale,
Roll wide the wither'd waste, and whistle bleak,
Fled is the blafted verdure of the fields;
And, fhrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their funny robes refign. Even what remain'd
Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree;
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around
The defolated prospect thrills the foul.
He comes! he comes in every breeze the PowER Of PHILOSOPHIC MELANCHOLY Comes! His near approach the sudden-starting tear, The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air, The foftened feature, and the beating heart, Pierc'd deep with many a virtuous pang; declare. O'er all the foul his facred influence breathes! Inflames imagination; thro' the breast
Infufes every tenderness; and far
Beyond him earth exalts the fwelling thought.
Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, fuch
As never mingled with the vulgar dream,
Croud faft into the Mind's creative eye.
As faft the correfpondent paffions rife,
As varied, and as high: Devotion rais'd
To rapture, and divine astonishment;
The love of Nature unconfin'd, and, chief,
Of human race; the large ambitious wish,
To make them bleft; the figh for fuffering worth, Loft in obfcurity; the noble fcorn
Of tyrant-pride; the fearless great refolve;
The wonder which the dying patriot draws,
Infpiring glory thro' remotest time;
Th' awakened throb for virtue, and for fame;
The fympathies of love, and friendship dear;
With all the focial offspring of the heart.
OH bear me then to vaft embowering fhades,
To twilight groves, and vifionary vales;
To weeping grottoes, and prophetic glooms;
Where angel-forms athwart the folemn dufk,
Tremendous sweep, or feem to fweep along ;
And voices more than human, thro' the void
Deep-founding, feize th' enthufiaftic ear!
OR is this gloom too much? Then lead, ye powers, That o'er the garden and the rural seat
Prefide, which shining thro' the chearful land 950 In countless numbers bleft BRITANNIA fees;
O lead me to the wide-extended walks,
The fair majestic paradife of STOWE *!
Not Perfian Cyrus on Ionia's fhore,
E'er faw fuch filvan fcenes; fuch various art
By genius fir'd, fuch ardent genius tam'd
By cool judicious art; that, in the ftrife,
All-beauteous Nature fears to be outdone.
And there, O PIT, thy country's early boaft,
There let me fit beneath the shelter'd slopes,
Or in that + Temple where, in future times,
Thou well fhalt merit a distinguish'd name;
And, with thy converse bleft, catch the last smiles
Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods.
While there with thee th' inchanted round. I walk,
The regulated wild, gay Fancy then
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Wild tread in thought the groves of Attic Land;
Will from thy standard taste refine her own,
Correct her pencil to the pureft truth
Of Nature, or, the unimpaffion'd shades
Forfaking, raise it to the human mind..
Or if hereafter fhe, with jufter hand,
Shall draw the tragic fcene, inftruct her thou,.
The feat of the Lord Viscount Cobham.
The Temple of Virtue in Stowe-Gardens,
H 6
To mark the varied movements of the heart,
What every decent character requires,
And every paffion fpeaks: O thro' her strain.
Breathe thy pathetic eloquence! that moulds
Th' attentive fenate, charms, perfuades, exalts,
Of honest zeal th' indignant lightning throws,
And shakes corruption on her venal throne.
While thus we talk, and thro' Elyfian Vales
Delighted rove, perhaps a sigh escapes :
What pity, COBHAM, thou thy verdant files
Of ordered trees shouldft here inglorious range,
Inftead of fquadrons flaming o'er the field,
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And long-embattled hofts! When the proud foe
The faithlefs vain difturber of mankind,
Infulting Gaul, has rous'd the world to war;
When keen, once more, within their bounds to press
Thofe polifh'd robbers, thofe ambitious flaves, 99.0
The BRITISH YOUTH would hail thy wife command,
Thy temper'd ardor and thy veteran skill.
THE western fun withdraws the fhortened day; And humid evening, gliding o'er the sky, In her chill progrefs, to the ground condens'd The vapours throws. Where creeping waters ooze, Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind, Clufter the rolling fogs, and fwim along
The dusky-mantled lawn. Mean-while the moon
Full-orb'd, and breaking thro' the scattered clouds,
Shews her broad vifage in the crimson'd east..
Turn'd to the fun direct, her spotted disk,.
Where mountains rife, umbrageous dales defcend,
And.caverns deep, as optic tube defcries,
A smaller earth, gives all his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a fofter day.
Now thro' the paffing cloud fhe feems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides fublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild
O'er the sky'd mountains to the shadowy vale, 1010
While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam,
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide
Of filver radiance, trembling round the world.
BUT when half blotted from the sky her light,
Fainting, permits the ftarry fires to burn,
With keener luftre thro' the depth of heaven;
Or quite extinct her deaden'd orb appears,
And scarce appears, of fickly beamless white;
Oft in this season, filent from the north
A blaze of meteors shoots: ensweeping first.
The lower skies, they all at once converge
High to the crown of heaven, and all at once
Relapfing quick as quickly reafcend,
And mix, and thwart, extinguish, and renew,
All ether courfing in a maze of light...
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