Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt feraph that adores and burns ;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Ceafe then. nor ORDER imperfection name;
Our proper blifs depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit-In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as bleft as thou canft bear :
Safe in the hand of one difpofing Power,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not fee
All difcord, harmony not understood 1;
All partial evil, univerfal good:
And, fpite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.
SECTION XXI.
Confidence in Divine Protection.
How are thy fervants bleft, O Lord!
How fure is their defence!
Eternal Wisdom is their guide,
Their help Omnipotence.
In foreign realms, and lands remote,
Supported by thy care,
Through burning climes 1 pafs'd unhurt,
And breath'd in tainted air.
Thy mercy fweeten'd every foil,
Made every region please ;
The hoary Alpine hills it warm'd,
And fmooth'd the Tyrrhene feas.
Think, O my foul, devoutly think,
How, with affrighted eyes,
Thou faw'ft the wide extended deep
In all its horrors rife !
Confufion dwelt in every face,
And fear in every heart,
When waves on waves, and gulfs in gulfs,
O'ercame the pilot's art.
Yet then, from all my griefs, O Lord,
Thy mercy fet me free;
While in the confidence of prayer
My foul took hold on thee.
For tho' in dreadful whirls we hung
High on the broken wave,
I knew thou wert not flow to hear,
Nor impotent to fave.
The ftorm was laid, the winds retir'd,
Obedient to thy will;
The fea, that roar'd at thy command,
At thy command was ftill.
In midst of dangers, fears, and deaths,
Thy goodness I'll adore;
And praife thee for thy mercies past,
And humbly hope for more.
My life, if thou preferve my life,
Thy facrifice fhall be;
And death, if death must be my doom,
Shall join my foul to thee.
SECTION XXH.
Hymn on a Review of the Seafons.
THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleafing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tendernefs and love.
Wide flush the fields; the foftening air is balm ;
Echo the mountains round; the foreft fmiles;
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 fpeaks;
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 florms
Around thee thrown, tempeft o'er tempeft roll'd,
Majeftic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing,
Riding fublime, thou bidft the world adore;
And humblest 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 soft'ning into shade,
And all fo forming an harmonious whole,
That, as they ftill fucceed, they ravish still.
But wand'ring oft, with brute unconfcious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever bufy, wheels the filent spheres ;
Works in the fecret deep; fhoots, fteaming, thence
The fair profufion that o'erfpreads the fpring;
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 fprings of life.
Nature, attend! join every living foul,
Beneath the fpacious temple of the sky.
In adoration join! and, ardent, raise
One general fong!
Ye, chief, for whom the whole creation fmiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn!
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the bloffom blows; the fummer ray
Ruffets the plain; infpiring autumn gleams;
Or winter rifes in the black'ning east ;
Be my tongue mute, may fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat !
Should fate command me to the fartheft verge
Of the green earth, to diffant barb'rous climes,
Rivers unknown to fong: where first the fun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his fetting beam
Flames on th' Atlantic ifles; 'tis nought to me ;
Since God is ever prefent, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full;
And where He vital breathes there must be joy.
When e'en at laft the folemn hour fhall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rifing wonders fing: I cannot go
Where UNIVERSAL LOVE not fmiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their funs;
From feeming evil ftill educing good,
And better thence again, and better ftill,
In infinite progreffion. But I lofe
Myfelf in HIM, in light ineffable !
Come then, expreffive filence, mufe his praife. THOMSON.
Promifcuous Pieces.
SECTION XXIII.
On Solitude.
O SOLITUDE, romantic maid!
Whether by nodding towers you tread,
Or haunt the defert's tracklefs gloom,
Or hover o'er the yawning tomb,
Or climb the Andes' clifted fide, .
Or by the Nile's coy fource abide,
Or, starting from your half-year's fleep,
From Hecla view the thawing deep,
Or, at the purple dawn of day,
Tadmor's marble waftes furvey;
You, reclufe, again I woo,
And again your steps pursue.
Plum'd conceit himself surveying,
Folly with her fhadow playing,
Purfe-proud elbowing infolence,
Bloated empiric, puff'd pretence,
Noife that through a trumpet fpeaks,
Laughter in loud peals that breaks,
Intrufion, with a fopling's face,
(Ignorant of time and place,)
Sparks of fire diffenfion blowing,
Ductile, court-bred flattery bowing,
Restraint's stiff neck, grimace's leer,
Squint-ey'd cenfure's artful fneer,
Ambition's bufkins, fteep'd in blood,
Fly thy prefence, Solitude!
Sage reflection bent with years,
Confcious virtue, void of fears,
Muffled filence, wood-nymph fhy,
Meditation's piercing eye,
Halcyon peace on mofs reclin'd,
Retrofpect that fcans the mind,
Rapt earth gazing-revery,
Blushing artless modefty,
Health that fnuffs the morning air,
Full-ey'd truth with bofom bare,
Infpiration, nature's child,
Seek the folitary wild.
When all nature's hush'd asleep,
Nor love, nor guilt, their vigils keep,
Soft you leave your cavern'd den,
And wander o'er the works of men ;
But when Phosphor brings the dawn,
By her dappled courfers drawn,
Again you to the wild retreat,
And the early huntíman meet,
Where, as you penfive pass along,
You catch'd the diftant fhepherd's fong,
Or brush from herbs the pearly dew,
Or the rifing primrose view,
Devotion lends her heaven-plum'd wings,
You mount, and nature with you fings.
But when mid-day fervours glow,
To upland airy fhades you go,
Where never fun-burnt woodman came,
Nor fportfman chas'd the timid game:
And there, beneath an oak reclin'd,
With drowsy waterfalls behind,
You fink to rest.
Till the tuneful bird of night,
From the neighb'ring poplar's height,
Wake you with her folemn ftrain,
And teach pleas'd echo to complain.
With you rofes brighter bloom,
Sweeter every fweet perfume;
Purer every fountain flows,
Stronger every wilding grows.
Let thofe toil for gold who please,
Or, for fame renounce their ease.
What is fame? An empty bubble;
Gold? a fhining, conftant trouble.
Let them for their country bleed!
What was Sidney's, Raleigh's meed?
Man's not worth a moment's pain;
Bafe, ungrateful, fickle, vain.
Then let me, fequefter'd fair,
To your fibyl grot repair,
On yon hanging cliff it ftands,
Scoop'd by nature's plaftic hands,
Bofom'd in the gloomy fhade
Of cyprefs not with age decay'd;
Where the owl ftill hooting fits,
Where the bat inceffant flits;
There in loftier strains I'll fing
Whence the changing feafons fpring;
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