His sheltering side, and wilfully forwent 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 humour; 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 hold, Would urge a wiser suit than asking more.
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 northern 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 splendour 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 soft 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 fall
The insupportable fatigue of thought,
And swallowing therefore 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 sheep-walks populous with bleeting lambs, And lanes, in which the primrose ere her time [root, Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth, Not shy, as in the world, and to be won By slow solicitation, seize at once
The roving thought, and fix it on themselves. What prodigies can power divine perform More grand than it produces year by year, And all in sight of inattentive man? Familiar with the effect, we slight the cause, And in the constancy of nature's course, The regular return of genial months, And renovation of a faded world,
See nought to wonder at. Should God again, As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race Of the undeviating and punctual sun, How would the world admire! but speaks it less An agency divine, to make him know
His moment when to sink and when to rise, Age after age, than to arrest his course? All we behold is miracle; but seen
So duly, all is miracle in vain.
Where now the vital energy that moved, While summer was, the pure and subtle lymph Through the imperceptible meandering veins Of leaf and flower? It sleeps; and the icy touch Of unprolific winter has impressed
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. Then, each in its peculiar honours clad, Shall publish even to the distant eye Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich In streaming gold; syringa, ivory pure; Here the heart The scentless and the scented rose; this red, And of an humbler growth, the other tall, And throwing up into the darkest gloom Of neighbouring cypress, or more sable yew, Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf That the wind severs from the broken wave; The lilac, various in array, now white,
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me. No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. The redbreast warbles still, but is content With slender notes, and more than half suppressed: 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 withered leaves below. Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, Charms more than silence. Meditation here May think down hours to moments. May give an useful lesson to the head, And learning wiser grow without his books. Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have oft-times no connexion. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men ; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, The mere materials with which wisdom builds, Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learned 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 enthralled. Some to the fascination of a name Surrender judgment, hood-winked. Some the style Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds Of error leads them by a tune entranced; While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear
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 all; Copious of flowers the woodbine, pale and wan, But well compensating her sickly looks With never-cloying odours, early and late; Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm Of flowers, like flies clothing her slender rods, That scarce a leaf appears; mezerion 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 unalloyed,
Her blossoms; and luxuriant above all The jessamine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, The deep dark green of whose unvarnished leaf Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more The bright profusion of her scattered stars. These have been, and these shall be in their day; And all this uniform and coloured 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 dies, 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,
From which they swerve not since. That under force Of that controlling ordinance they move, And need not his immediate hand, who first Pr scribed their course, to regulate it now. Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God The incumbrance of his own concerns, and spare 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 impelled 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 maintained, Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight Slow circling ages are as transient days; Whose work is without labour; 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 Vertumnus; 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 plaited thorns with bleeding brows, Rules universal nature. Not a flower But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain, Of his unrivalled pencil. He inspires Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues, And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes In grains as countless as the sea-side sands, The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth. Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds Of flavour 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 been truc, And earth be punished for its tenant's sake, Yet not in vengeance: as this smiling sky, So soon succeeding such an angry night, And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream Recovering fast its liquid music, prove.
ANTICIPATION OF THE MILLENNIUM.
THE groans of nature in this nether world, Which Heaven has heard for ages, have an end; Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung, Whose fire was kindled at the prophets' lamp, The time of rest, the promised sabbath, comes. Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course Over a sinful world; and what remains Of this tempestuous state of human things, Is merely as the working of a sea Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest :
For He, whose car the winds are, and the clouds The dust, that waits upon his sultry march, When sin hath moved him, and his wrath is hot, Shall visit earth in mercy; shall descend Propitious in his chariot paved with love; And what his storms have blasted and defaced For man's revolt, shall with a smile repair.
Sweet is the harp of prophecy; too sweet Not to be wronged by a mere mortal touch: Nor can the wonders it records be sung To meaner music, and not suffer loss. But when a poet, or when one like me, Happy to rove among poetic flowers, Though poor in skill to rear them, lights at last On some fair theme, some theme divinely fair, Such is the impulse and the spur he feels To give it praise proportioned to its worth, That not to attempt it, arduous as he deems The labour, were a task more arduous still.
O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true! Scenes of accomplished bliss! which who can see, Though but in distant prospect, and not feel His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy? Rivers of gladness water all the earth,
And clothe all climes with beauty; the reproach
Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field Laughs with abundance; and the land, once lean, Or fertile only in its own disgrace, Exults to see its thistly curse repealed. The various seasons woven into one, And that one season an eternal spring,
The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence, For there is none to covet, all are full. The lion, and the libbard, and the bear Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon Together, or all gambol in the shade
Of the same grove, and drink one common stream. Antipathies are none. No foe to man Lurks in the serpent now: the mother sees, And smiles to see, her infant's playful hand Stretched forth to dally with the crested worm, To stroke his azure neck, or to receive The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue. All creatures worship man, and all mankind One Lord, one Father. Error has no place: That creeping pestilence is driven away;
The breath of Heaven has chased it. In the heart No passion touches a discordant string, But all is harmony and love. Disease Is not: the pure and uncontaminate blood Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age. One song employs all nations; and all cry, "Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!" The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and the mountain tops. From distant mountains catch the flying joy; Till nation after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round. Behold the measure of the promise filled; See Salem built, the labour of a God! Bright as a sun the sacred city shines; All kingdoms and all princes of the earth Flock to that light; the glory of all lands Flows into her; unbounded is her joy, And endless her increase. Thy rams are there, Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there; The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind, And Saba's spicy groves, pay tribute there. Praise is in all her gates: upon her walls, And in her streets, and in her spacious courts, Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there Kneels with the native of the farthest west; And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand, And worships. Her report has travelled forth Into all lands. From every clime they come To see thy beauty and to share thy joy. O Sion! an assembly such as earth Saw never, such as Heaven stoops down to see. Thus heavenward all things tend. For all were once Perfect, and all must be at length restored. So God has greatly purposed; who would else In his dishonoured works himself endure, Dishonour, and be wronged without redress. Haste then, and wheel away a shattered world, Ye slow-revolving seasons! we would see (A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet) A world, that does not dread and hate his laws, And suffer for its crime; would learn how fair The creature is that God pronounces good, How pleasant in itself what pleases him. Here every drop of honey hides a sting;
Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flowers; And ev'n the joy, that haply some poor heart Derives from heaven, pure as the fountain is, Is sullied in the stream, taking a taint From touch of human lips, at best impure. Oh for a world in principle as chaste As this is gross and selfish! over which Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway, That govern all things here, shouldering aside The meek and modest truth, and forcing her To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men: Where violence shall never lift the sword, Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong, Leaving the poor no remedy but tears: Where he, that fills an office, shall esteem The occasion it presents of doing good More than the perquisite: where law shall speak Seldom, and never but as wisdom prompts And equity; not jealous more to guard A worthless form, than to decide aright: Where fashion shall not sanctify abuse, Nor smooth good-breeding (supplemental grace) With lean performance ape the work of love!
Come then, and added to thy many crowns, Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, Thou who alone art worthy! It was thine By ancient covenant, ere nature's birth; And thou hast made it thine by purchase since, And overpaid its value with thy blood.
Thy saints proclaim thee king; and in their hearts Thy title is engraven with a pen
Dipt in the fountain of eternal love.
Thy saints proclaim thee king; and thy delay Gives courage to their foes, who, could they see The dawn of thy last advent, long-desired, Would creep into the bowels of the hills, And flee for safety to the falling rocks. The very spirit of the world is tired
Of its own taunting question, asked so long, "Where is the promise of your Lord's approach ?" The infidel has shot his bolts away, Till his exhausted quiver yielding none,
He gleans the blunted shafts, that have recoiled, And aims them at the shield of truth again. The veil is rent, rent too by priestly hands, That hides divinity from mortal eyes; And all the mysteries to faith proposed, Insulted and traduced, are cast aside, As useless, to the moles and to the bats. They now are deemed the faithful, and are praised, Who constant only in rejecting thee, Deny thy Godhead with a martyr's zeal, And quit their office for their error's sake. Blind, and in love with darkness! yet even these Worthy, compared with sycophants, who knee Thy name adoring, and then preach thee man! So fares thy church. But how thy church may fare The world takes little thought. Who will may
And what they will. All pastors are alike To wandering sheep, resolved to follow none. Two gods divide them all-Pleasure and Gain: For these they live; they sacrifice to these, And in their service wage perpetual war
With conscience and with thee. Lust in their hearts,
And mischief in their hands, they roam the earth To prey upon each other: stubborn, fierce, High-minded, foaming out their own disgrace. Thy prophets speak of such; and, noting down The features of the last degenerate times, Exhibit every lineament of these. Come then, and added to thy many crowns, Receive yet one, as radiant as the rest, Due to thy last and most effectual work, Thy word fulfilled, the conquest of a world!
He is the happy man, whose life e'en now Shows somewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose, Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith, Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one Content indeed to sojourn while he must Below the skies, but having there his home. The world o'erlooks him in her busy search Of objects, more illustrious in her view; And, occupied as earnestly as she, Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world. She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not; He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain. He cannot skim the ground like summer birds Pursuing gilded flies; and such he deems Her honours, her emoluments, her joys. Therefore in contemplation is his bliss:
His influence, if that influence all be spent In soothing sorrow and in quenching strife, In aiding helpless indigence, in works, From which at least a grateful few derive Some taste of comfort in a world of woe, Then let the supercilious great confess He serves his country, recompenses well The state, beneath the shadow of whose vine He sits secure, and in the scale of life Holds no ignoble, though a slighted, place. The man, whose virtues are more felt than seen, Must drop indeed the hope of public praise; But he may boast what few that win it can, That if his country stand not by his skill, At least his follies have not wrought her fall. Polite refinement offers him in vain Her golden tube, through which a sensual world Draws gross impurity, and likes it well, The neat conveyance hiding all the offence. Not that he peevishly rejects a mode, Because that world adopts it. If it bear The stamp and clear impression of good sense, And be not costly more than of true worth, He puts it on, and for decorum sake Can wear it e'en as gracefully as she. She judges of refinement by the eye, He by the test of conscience, and a heart Not soon deceived; aware that what is base No polish can make sterling; and that vice,
Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from earth Though well perfumed and elegantly dressed,
She makes familiar with a heaven unseen, And shows him glories yet to be revealed. Not slothful he, though seeming unemployed, And censured oft as useless. Stillest streams Oft water fairest meadows; and the bird, That flutters least, is longest on the wing. Ask him, indeed, what trophies he has raised, Or what achievements of immortal fame He purposes, and he shall answer-None. His warfare is within. There, unfatigued, His fervent spirit labours. There he fights, And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself, And never-withering wreaths, compared with which The laurels that a Cæsar reaps are weeds. Perhaps the self-approving haughty world, That as she sweeps him with her whistling silks Scarce deigns to notice him, or, if she see, Deems him a cipher in the works of God, Receives advantage from his noiseless hours, Of which she little dreams. Perhaps she owes Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring And plenteous harvest, to the prayer he makes, When, Isaac like, the solitary saint Walks forth to meditate at even-tide, And think on her, who thinks not for herself. Forgive him then, thou bustler in concerns Of little worth, an idler in the best, If, author of no mischief and some good, He seek his proper happiness by means That may advance, but cannot hinder, thine. Nor, though he tread the secret path of life, Engage no notice, and enjoy much ease, Account him an incumbrance on the state, Receiving benefits, and rendering none.
His sphere though humble, if that humble sphere Shine with his fair example, and though small
Like an unburied carcase tricked with flowers, Is but a garnished nuisance, fitter far For cleanly riddance than for fair attire. So life glides smoothly and by stealth away, More golden than that age of fabled gold Renowned in ancient song; not vexed with care Or stained with guilt, beneficent, approved Of God and man, and peaceful in its end. So glide my life away! and so at last, My share of duties decently fulfilled, May some disease, not tardy to perform Its destined office, yet with gentle stroke Dismiss me weary to a safe retreat, Beneath the turf that I have often trod. It shall not grieve me then, that once, when called To dress a Sofa with the flowers of verse,
I played awhile, obedient to the fair, With that light task; but soon, to please her more, Whom flowers alone I knew would little please, Let fall the unfinished wreath, and roved for fruit ; Roved far, and gathered much: some harsh, 'tis true, Picked from the thorns and briars of reproof, But wholesome, well-digested; grateful some To palates, that can taste immortal truth; Insipid else, and sure to be despised. But all is in his hand, whose praise I seek. In vain the poet sings, and the world hears, If he regard not, though divine the theme. 'Tis not in artful measures, in the chime And idle tinkling of a minstrel's lyre, To charm his ear, whose eye is on the heart; Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain, Whose approbation-prosper even mine.
ADDRESSED TO MISS STAPLETON.
SHE came she is gone-we have met- And meet perhaps never again; The sun of that moment is set,
And seems to have risen in vain. Catharina has fled like a dream- (So vanishes pleasure, alas!) But has left a regret and esteem
That will not so suddenly pass.
The last evening ramble we made, Catharina, Maria, and I, Our progress was often delayed
By the nightingale warbling nigh. We paused under many a tree,
And much she was charmed with a tone Less sweet to Maria and me,
Who had witnessed so lately her own.
My numbers that day she had sung, And gave them a grace so divine, As only her musical tongue
Could infuse into numbers of mine. The longer I heard, I esteemed
The work of my fancy the more, And ev'n to myself never seemed So tuneful a poet before.
Though the pleasures of London exceed
In number the days of the year, Catharina, did nothing impede,
Would feel herself happier here; For the close-woven arches of limes On the banks of our river, I know, Are sweeter to her many times
Than all that the city can show.
So it is, when the mind is endued With a well-judging taste from above, Then, whether embellished or rude, 'Tis nature alone that we love. The achievements of art may amuse, May even our wonder excite, But groves, hills, and valleys, diffuse A lasting, a sacred delight.
Since then in the rural recess
Catharina alone can rejoice, May it still be her lot to possess
The scene of her sensible choice!
To inhabit a mansion remote
From the clatter of street-pacing steeds, And by Philomel's annual note
To measure the life that she leads:
With her book, and her voice, and her lyre, To wing all her moments at home, And with scenes that new rapture inspire As oft as it suits her to roam. She will have just the life she prefers, With little to wish or to fear, And ours will be pleasant as hers, Might we view her enjoying it here.
THERE is a field, through which I often pass, Thick overspread with moss and silky grass, Adjoining close to Kilwick's echoing wood, Where oft the bitch-fox hides her hapless brood, Reserved to solace many a neighbouring 'squire, That he may follow them through brake and briar, Contusion hazarding of neck, or spine, Which rural gentlemen call sport divine. A narrow brook, by rushy banks concealed, Runs in a bottom, and divides the field; Oaks intersperse it, that had once a head, But now wear crests of oven-wood instead ; And where the land slopes to its watery bourn, Wide yawns a gulf beside a ragged thorn; Bricks line the sides, but shivered long ago, And horrid brambles intertwine below; A hollow scooped, I judge, in ancient time, For baking earth, or burning rock to lime.
Not yet the hawthorn bore her berries red, With which the fieldfare, wintry guest, is fed; Nor autumn yet had brushed from every spray, With her chill hand, the mellow leaves away; But corn was housed, and beans were in the stack: Now therefore issued forth the spotted pack, With tails high mounted, ears hung low, and throats With a whole gamut filled of heavenly notes, For which, alas! my destiny severe,
Though ears she gave me two, gave me no ear.
The sun, accomplishing his early march, His lamp now planted on heaven's topmost arch, When, exercise and air, my only aim, And heedless whither, to that field I came, Ere yet with ruthless joy the happy hound Told hill and dale that Reynard's track was found, Or with the high-raised horn's melodious clang All Kilwick and all Dingle-derry rang.
Sheep grazed the field; some with soft bosom pressed The herb as soft, while nibbling strayed the rest; Nor noise was heard but of the hasty brook, Struggling, detained in many a petty nook. All seemed so peaceful, that from them conveyed To me, their peace by kind contagion spread.
But when the huntsman with distended cheek, 'Gan make his instrument of music speak, And from within the wood that crash was heard Though not a hound from whom it burst appeared, The sheep recumbent, and the sheep that grazed, All huddling into phalanx, stood and gazed, Admiring, terrified, the novel strain, [again; Then coursed the field around, and coursed it round But recollecting, with a sudden thought, That flight in circles urged advanced them nought, They gathered close around the old pit's brink, And thought again—but knew not what to think. The man to solitude accustomed long Perceives in every thing that lives a tongue; Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees, Have speech for him, and understood with ease; After long drought, when rains abundant fall, He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all; Knows what the freshness of their hue implies, How glad they catch the largess of the skies; But with precision nicer still, the mind
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