"Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth Of heaven, and earth! awakening Nature hears The new creating word, and starts to life,
In every heightened form, from pain and death 1045
For ever free. The great eternal scheme
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To reason's eye refin'd clears up apace.
Ye vainly wife! ye blind prefumptuous! now, 1050
Confounded in the duft, adore that POWER,
And WISDOM oft arraign'd: fee now the cause,
Why unaffuming worth in fecret liv'd,
And dy'd, neglected: why the good Man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul:
Why the lone widow, and her orphans pin'd,
In ftarving folitude; while luxury,
In palaces, lay ftraining her low thought,
To form unreal wants: why heaven-born_truth,
And moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of fuperftition's fcourge: why licens'd pain,
That cruel fpoiler, that embofom'd foe,
Imbitter'd all our blifs. Ye good distrest |
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's preffure, yet bear up a while,
And what your bounded view, which only faw
A little part, deem'd Evil is no more:
The storms of WINTRY TIME will quickly pass,
And one unbounded SPRING encircle all.
Are but the varied GOD. The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleafing Spring
THY beauty walks, THY tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the foftening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the foreft smiles;
And every fenfe, and every heart is joy.
Then comes THY glory in the Summer-months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then THY fun
Shoots full perfection thro' the fwelling 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 fhines in Autumn unconfin'd,
And spreads a common feaft for all that lives.
In Winter awful THOU! with clouds and storms
Around THEE thrown, tempeft o'er tempeft roll'd,
Majeftic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,
Riding fublime, THOU bidft the world adore,
And humbleft Nature with THY northern blast.
MYSTERIOUS round! what skill, what force divine, Deep-felt, in these appear! a fimple train, Yet fo delightful mix'd, with fuch kind art, Such beauty and beneficence combin'd; Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade And all fo forming an harmonious whole; That, as they ftill fucceed, they ravish still. But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze, Man marks not THEE, marks not the mighty hand, That, ever-busy, wheels the filent spheres ; 30 Works in the fecret deep; fhoots, fteaming, thence The fair profufion that o'erspreads the Spring: Flings from the fun direct the flaming day; Feeds every creature; hurls the tempeft forth; And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, With transport touches all the springs of life.
NATURE, attend! join every living foul,
Beneath the fpacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise
One general fong! To HIM, ye vocal gales,
Breathe foft, whofe SPIRIT in your freshness breathes :
Oh talk of HIM in folitary glooms!
Where, o'er the rock, the fcarcely waving pine
Fills the brown fhade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
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Who shake th' astonish'd world, lift high to heaven
Th' impetuous fong, and fay 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 fofter floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A fecret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound HIS ftupendous praise; whofe greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
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Soft-roll your incenfe, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to HIM; whofe fun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whofe pencil paints.
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to HIм;
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, effufe your mildest beams,
Ye conftellations, while your angels ftrike,
Amid the fpangled sky, the filver lyre.
Great fource of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On Nature write with every beam HIS praise.
The thunder rolls: be hufh'd the proftrate world; 70
While cloud to cloud returns the folemn bymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye moffy rocks,
Retain the found: the broad responsive lowe,
Ye valleys, raife; for the GREAT SHEPHERD reigns;
And his unfuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless fong
Burft from the groves! and when the restlefs day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! fweet Philomela, charm
The listening shades, and teach the night His praise. 80
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation fmiles;
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in fwarming cities vast,
Affembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-refounding voice, oft-breaking clear,
At folemn pauses, thro' the fwelling bafe;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardor rife to heaven.
Or if you rather chufe the rural fhade,
And find a fane in every facred grove;
There let the fhepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting feraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still fing the GOD OF SEASONS, as they roll.
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the bloffom blows, the fummer-ray
Ruffets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams;
Or Winter rifes in the blackening east;
Be my tongue mute, may fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!
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