Here too dwells simple Truth; plain Innocence; 1271
Unsullied Beauty; sound unbroken Youth,
Patient of labor, with a little pleased;
Health ever blooming; unambitious Toil,
Calm Contemplation, and poetic Ease.

1275
Let others brave the flood in quest of gain,
And beat, for joyless months, the gloomy wave.
Let such as deem it glory to destroy,
Rush into blood, the sack of cities seek ;
Unpierced, exulting in the widow's wail, 1280
The virgin's shriek, and infant's trembling cry.
Let some, far distant from their native soil,
Urged or by want or hardened avarice,
Find other lands beneath another sun.
Let this through cities work his eager way,

1285 By legal outrage and established guile, The social sense extinct; and that ferment Mad into tumult the seditious herd, Or melt them down to slavery. Let these Insnare the wretched in the toils of law,

1290 Fomenting discord, and perplexing right, An iron race ! and those of fairer front, But equal inhumanity, in courts, Delusive pomp and dark cabals, delight; Wreathe the deep bow, diffuse the lying smile, 1295 And tread the weary labyrinth of state. While he, from all the stormy passions free That restless men involve, hears, and but hears, At distance safe, the human tempest roar, Wrapped close in conscious peace. The fall of kings, The rage of nations, and the crush of states, 1301 Move not the man who, from the world escaped, In still retreats, and flowery solitudes, To Nature's voice attends, from month to month And day to day, through the revolving year : 1305 Admiring, sees her in her every shape : Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart; Takes what she liberal gives, nor thinks of more.

:

He, when young Spring protrudes the bursting gems,
Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale 1310
Into his freshened soul; her genial hours
He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows,
And not an opening blossomn breathes in vain.
In Summer he, beneath the living shade,
Such as o'er frigid Tempè wont to wave,

1315
Or Hemus cool, reads what the Muse, of these,
Perhaps, has in immortal numbers sung;
Or what she dictates writes; and, oft an eye
Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.
When Autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world, 1320
And tempts the sickled swain into the field,
Seized by the general joy, his heart distends
With gentle throes; and, through the tepid gleams
Deep musing, then he best exerts his song.
E’en Winter wild to him is full of bliss.

1325 The mighty tempest, and the hoary waste, Abrupt, and deep, stretched o'er the buried earth, Awake to solemn thought. At night the skies, Disclosed, and kindled, by refining frost, Pour every lustre on th’exalted eye.

1330 A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure, And mark them down for wisdom. With swift wing, O'er land and sea imagination roams : Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind, Elates his being, and unfolds his powers ;

1335 Or in his breast heroic virtue burns ; The touch of kindred too and love he feels; The modest eye, whose beams on his alone Ecstatic shine; the little strong embrace Of prattling children twined around his neck, 1340 And emulous to please him, calling forth The fond parental soul. Nor purpose gay, Amusement, dance, or song, he sternly scorns For happiness and true philosophy Are of the social, still, and smiling kind. 1345 This is the life which those who fret in guilt,

And guilty cities, never knew; the life,
Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt,
When Angels dwelt, and God himself, with Man!
O Nature ! all sufficient! over all !

1350
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works ;
Snatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonders there,
World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profusely seattered o'er the blue immense,
Show me; their motions, periods, and their laws,
Give me to scan; through the disclosing deep

1356 Light my blind way; the mineral strata there; Thrust, blooming, thence the vegetable world; O’er that the rising system, more complex, Of animals; and higher still, the mind,

1360 The varied scene of quick-compounded thought; And where the mixing passions endless shift; These ever open to my ravished eye; A search, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust ! But if to that unequal; if the blood,

1365 In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid That best ambition ; under closing shades, Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook, And whisper to my dreams. From Thee begin, Dwell all on Thee, with Thee conclude my song, And let me never, never stray from Thee ! 1371