The fall of waters, and the song of birds,
And hills, that echo to the distant herds,
Are luxuries excelling all the glare

The world can boast, and her chief favourites share.
With eager step, and carelessly arrayed,
For such a cause the poet seeks the shade,
From all he sees he catches new delight,
Pleased fancy claps her pinions at the sight,
The rising or the setting orb of day,
The clouds that flit, or slowly float away,
Nature in all the various shapes she wears,
Frowning in storms, or breathing gentle airs,
The snowy robe her wintry state assumes,
Her summer heats, her fruits, and her perfumes,
All, all alike transport the glowing bard,
Success in rhyme his glory and reward.

Oh nature! whose Elysian.scenes disclose
His bright perfections, at whose word they rose,
Next to that power, who formed thee and sustains,
Be thou the great inspirer of my strains.
Still, as I touch the lyre, do thou expand
Thy genuine charms, and guide an artless hand,
That I may catch a fire but rarely known,
Give useful light though I should miss renown,
And, poring on thy page, whose every line
Bears proof of an intelligence divine,
May feel an heart enriched by what it pays,
That builds its glory on its Maker's praise.
Woe to the man, whose wit disclaims its use,
Glittering in vain, or only to seduce,

Who studies nature with a wanton eye,
Admires the work, but slips the lesson by;
His hours of leisure and recess employs.
In drawing pictures of forbidden joys,
Retires to blazon his own worthless name,
Or shoot the careless with a surer aim.
The lover too shuns business and alarms,
Tender idolater of absent charms.

Saints offer nothing in their warnest prayers,
That he devotes not with a zeal like their's;
'Tis consecration of his heart, soul, time,
And every thought that wanders, is a crime.
In sighs he worships his supremely fair,
And weeps a sad libation in despair,
Adores a creature, and, devout in vain,
Wins in return an answer of disdain.

As woodbine weds the plant within her reach,
Rough elm, orsmooth-grained ash, or glossy beech,
In spiral rings ascends the trunk, and lays
Her golden tassels on the leafy sprays,

But does a mischief while she lends a grace,
Straitening its growth by such a strict embrace;
So love, that clings around the noblest minds,
Forbids the advancement of the soul he binds;
The suitor's air indeed he soon improves,
And forms it to the taste of her he loves,
Teaches his eyes a language, and no less
Refines his speech and fashions his address;
But farewell promises of happier fruits,
Manly designs, and learning's grave pursuits;

Girt with a chain he cannot wish to break,
His only bliss is sorrow for her sake;

Who will may pant for glory and excol,
Her smile his aim, all higher aims farewell!
Thyrsis, Alexis, or whatever name

May least offend against so pure a flame,
Though sage advice of friends the most sincere
Sounds harshly in so delicate an ear,

And lovers of all creatures, tame or wild,
Can least brook management, however mild,
Yet let a poet (poetry disarms

The fiercest animals with magic charms)
Risque an intrusion on thy pensive mood,
And woo and win thee to thy proper good.
Pastoral images and still retreats,
Umbrageous walks and solitary seats,

Sweet birds in concert with harmonious streams,
Soft airs, nocturnal vigils, and day dreams,
Are all enchantments in a case like thine,
Conspire against thy peace with one design,
Sooth thee to make thee but a surer prey,
And feed the fire, that wastes thy powers away.
Up-God has formed thee with a wiser view,
Not to be led in chains, but to subdue,
Calls thee to cope with enemies, and first
Points out a conflict with thyself, the worst.
Woman indeed, a gift he would bestow
When he designed a paradise below,
The richest earthly boon his hands afford,
Deserves to be beloved, but not adored.

Post away swiftly to more active scenes,
Collect the scattered truths that study gleans,
Mix with the world, but with its wiser part,
No longer give an image all thine heart;
Its empire is not her's, nor is it thine,
'Tis God's just claim, prerogative divine.

Virtuous and faithful HEBERDEN! whose skill
Attempts no task it cannot well fulfil,
Gives melancholy up to nature's care,

And sends the patient into purer air.

Look where he comes in this embowered alcove
Stand close concealed, and see a statue move:
Lips busy, and eyes fixt, foot falling slow,
Arms hanging idly down, hands clasped below,
Interpret to the marking eye distress,
Such as its symptoms can alone express.
That tongue is silent now; that silent tongue
Could argue once, could jest or join the song,
Could give advice, could censure or commend,
Or charm the sorrows of a drooping friend,
Renounced alike its office and its sport,
Its brisker and its graver strains fall short;
Both fail beneath a fever's secret sway,
And like a summer-brook are past away.
This is a sight for pity to peruse,

Till she resemble faintly what she views,
Till sympathy contract a kindred pain,

Pierced with the woes that she laments in vain.
This, of all maladies that man infest,

Claims most compassion, and receives the least:

Job felt it, when he groaned beneath the rod
And the barbed arrows of a frowning God;
And such emollients as his friends could spare,
Friends such as his for modern Jobs prepare.
Blest, rather curst, with hearts that never feel,
Kept snug in caskets of close hammered steel,
With mouths made only to grin wide and eat,
And minds, that deem derided pain a treat,
With limbs of British oak, and nerves of wire,
And wit, that puppet-prompters might inspire,
Their sovereign nostrum is a clumsy joke
On pangs enforced with God's severest stroke,
But with a soul, that ever felt the sting
Of sorrow, sorrow is a sacred thing:
Not to molest, or irritate, or raise

A laugh at his expence, is slender praise;
He, that has not usurped the name of man,
Does all, and deems too little all, he can,
To assuage the throbbings of the festered part,
And stanch the bleedings of a broken heart.
"Tis not, as heads that never ache suppose,
Forgery of fancy, and a dream of woes;
Man is an harp whose chords elude the sight,
Each yielding harmony disposed aright;

The screws reversed (a task which if he please
God in a moment executes with ease),

Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose, Lost, till he tune them, all their power and use. Then neither heathy wilds, nor scenes as fair As ever recompensed the peasant's care,