Creative of the Poet, every power
Exalting to an ecftacy of foul.
AND thou, my youthful mufe's early friend,
In whom the human graces all unite :
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart;
Genius, and wisdom; the gay focial sense,
By decency chaftis'd; goodness and wit,
In feldom-meeting harmony combin'd;
Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal,
For BRITAIN'S glory, Liberty, and Man :
O DODINGTON! attend my rural fong,
Stoop to my theme, infpirit every line,
And teach me to deserve thy just applause.
WITH what an awful world-revolving power,
Were first th' unwieldy planets launch'd along
Th' illimitable void! Thus to remain,
Amid the flux of many thousand years,
That oft has swept the toiling race of men,
And all their labour'd monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchlefs, in their courfe;
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day,
And of the seasons ever stealing round,
Minutely faithful: Such TH' ALL-PERFECT HAND; That pois'd, impels, and rules the steady whole.
WHEN now no more th' alternate Twins are fir'd, And Cancer reddens with the folar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the night;
And foon, obfervant of approaching day,
The meek-ey'd Morn appears, Mother of dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east:
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow;
And, from before the luftre of her face,
White break the clouds away. With quicken'd ftep,
Brown Night retires: Young Day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny profpect wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain's mifly top
Swell on the fight, and brighten with the dawn. 55
Blue thro' the dusk, the fmoaking currents fhine;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps, aukward: while along the foreft-glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze
The native voice of undiffembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arife.
Rous'd by the cock, the foon-clad fhepherd leaves
His mofly cottage, where with Peace he dwells;
And from the crouded fold, in order, drives
His flock, to taste the verdure of the morn.
FALSELY luxurious, will not Man awake;
And, fpringing from the bed of floth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the filent hour,
To meditation due and facred fong?
For is there aught in fleep can charın the wife?
To lie in dead oblivion, lofing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life?
Total extinction of th' enlightened foul!
Or else to feverish vanity alive,
Wildered, and toffing thro' diftemper'd dreams?
Who would in fuch a gloomy state remain,
Longer than Nature craves when every Mufe
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To blefs the wildly-devious morning-walk?
BUT yonder comes the powerful King of Day,
Rejoicing in the caft. The leffening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow
Illum'd with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo! now apparent all,
Allant the dew-bright earth, and colour'd air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad;
And sheds the shining day, that burnish'd plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering ftreams,
High-gleaming from afar. Prime chearer Light! 90
Of all material beings first, and best!
Eflux divine! Nature's refplendent robe !
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In uneffential gloom; and thou, O Sun!
Soul of furrounding worlds! in whom beft seen
Shines out thy Maker! may I fing of thee?
'Tis by thy fecret, ftrong, attractive force,
As with a chain indissoluble bound,
Thy Syftem rolls entire: from the far bourne
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round
Of thirty years; to Mercury, whofe difk
Can fcarce be caught by philofophic eye,
Loft in the near effulgence of thy blaze.
INFORMER of the planetary train!
Without whofe quickening glance their cumbrous orbs.
Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead,
And not as now the green abodes of life;
How many forms of being wait on thee!
Inhaling fpirit; from th' unfetter'd mind,
By thee fublim'd, down to the daily race,
The mixing myriads of thy fetting beam..
THE vegetable world is also thine,
Parent of Seafons! who the pomp precede
That waits thy throne, as thro' thy vast domain,
Annual, along the bright ecliptic-road,
In world-rejoicing ftate, it moves fublime.
Mean-time th' expecting nations, circled gay
With all the various tribes of foodful earth,
Implore thy bounty, or fend grateful up
A common hymn: while, round thy beaming car,
High-feen, the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance
Harmonious knit, the rofy-finger'd Hours,
The Zephyrs floating loofe, the timely Rains,
Of bloom ethereal the light-footed Dews,
And foftened into joy the furly Storms.
- Thefe, in fucceffive turn, with lavish hand,
Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower,
Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch, From land to land is flufh'd the vernal year.
NOR to the furface of enliven'd earth,
Graceful with hills and dales, and leafy woods,
Her liberal treffes, is thy force confin'd:
But, to the bowel'd cavern darting deep,
The mineral kinds confefs thy mighty power.
Effulgent, hence the veiny marble shines ;
Hence Labour draws his tools; hence burnifh'd War Gleams on the day; the nobler works of Peace Hence bless mankind, and generous Commerce binds The round of nations in a golden chain.
TA' unfruitful rock itself impregn'd by thee, 140
In dark retirement, forms the lucid stone.
The lively Diamond drinks thy purest rays,
Collected light, compact; that polish'd bright,
And all its native luftre let abroad,
Dares, as it fparkles on the fair-one's breast,
With vain ambition emulate her eyes.
At thee the Ruby lights its deepening glow,
And with a waving radiance inward flames.
From thee the Saphire, folid ether, takes
Its hue cerulean; and, of evening tinct,
The purple-ftreaming Amethyft is thine.
With thy own fmile the yellow Topaz burns.
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