Of happiness? those longings after fame?

Those restless cares? those busy bustling days?

Those gay-spent, festive nights? those veering thoughts

Lost between good and ill, that shared thy life?

All now are vanish'd! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal never-failing friend of Man,

His guide to happiness on high. And see!
'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heaven and earth! awakening nature hears
The new-creating. word, and starts to life,
In every heightened form, from pain and death
Forever free. The great eternal scheme,
"Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To reason's eye refined clears up apace.
Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power
And Wisdom oft arrang'd: see now the cause,
Why unassuming Worth in secret lived,
And died, neglected: why the good man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul;
Why the lone widow and her orphans pined
In starving solitude; while Luxury,

In palaces, lay straining her low thought,

To form unreal wants; why heaven-born truth
And Moderation fair wore the red marks
Of Superstition's scourge: why licensed Pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe,

Embitter'd all our bliss.

Ye good distress'd!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile,

And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil is no more:

The storms of Wintry Time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.

THESE, as they change, ALMIGHTY FATHER, these Are but the varied GOD. The rolling year

Is full of THEE. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, THY tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense and every heart is joy.
Then comes THY glory in the summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then THY sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:
And oft THY voice in dreadful thunder speaks:
And oft at dawn, deep moon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales
THY bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.

In Winter awful THOU! with clouds and storme

Around THEE thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd

Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,

Riding sublime, THOU bidst the world adore,
And humblest Nature with THY northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole:
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not THEE, marks not the mighty hand
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres;
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring:
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join, every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,

In adoration join; and, ardent, raise

One general song! To HIM, ye vocal gales,

Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes:

Oh, talk of HIM in solitary glooms!

Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine

Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.

And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,

Who shake th' astonish'd world, lift high to heaven
Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound:
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound His stupendous praise; whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roaring fail.

Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to HIM; whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave, to HIM;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy CREATOR, ever pouring wide,

From world to world the vital ocean round,
On Nature write with every beam His praise.
The Thunder rolls: he hush'd the prostrate world;
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye mossy rocks,

Retain the sound: the broad responsive low,

Ye valleys, raise; for the GREAT SHEPHERD reigns; And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.

Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song

Burst from the groves! and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm

The listening shades, and teach the night His praise.
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn; in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;
And as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardor rise to heaven.

Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove:
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the GOD of SEASONS, as they roll!
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the summer ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,
'Or winter rises in the blackening 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 further verge