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Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,

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 the astonish'd world, lift high to heaven

The impetuous song, and say from whom

you rage.

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, and tongue of all, Crown the great hymn! In swarming cities vast,

Assembled men to the deep organ join

His praise, ye brooks, attune; ye trembling The long-resounding voice, oft breaking

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 roarings fall. Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,

In mingled clouds to him, whose sun exalts, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pen

cil 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.
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; be 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,

clear,

At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour, rise to heaven.
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,my fancy paint no more
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat
Should fate command me to the utmost verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous
climes,

Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on th' Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to

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Since which I number three-score winter's Seeking her food, with ease might have

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So fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can, Ye reas'ners broad awake, whose busy search Of argument, employ'd too oft amiss, Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!

Thou fell'st mature, and, in the loamy clod Swelling with vegetative force instinct, Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins,

With prominent wens globose-till at the last,

The rottenness, which time is charg'd to inflict On other mighty ones, found also thee.

What exhibitions various hath the world Witness'd of mutability in all,

That we account most durable below!
Change is the diet, on which all subsist,

Now stars. Two lobes, protruding, pair'd Created changeable, and change at last

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Destroys them. Skies uncertain, now the heat

Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam
Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds,
Calm, and alternate storm, moisture, and
drought,

Invigorate by turns the springs of life
In all that live, plant, animal, and man,
And in conclusion mar them. Nature's
threads,

Fine, passing thought, e'en in her coarsest works,

Delight in agitation, yet sustain
The force that agitates, not unimpair'd,
But, worn by frequent impulse, to the cause
Of their best tone their dissolution owe.

Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still

The great and little of thy lot, thy growth From almost nullity into a state

Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence,

Slow, into such magnificent decay.

Time was, when, settling on thy leaf, a fly Could shake thee to the root-and time has

been

When tempests could not. At thy firmest age Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents, That might have ribb'd the sides and plank'd the deck

Of some flagg'd admiral, and tortuous arms, The shipwright's darling treasure, didst pre

sent

To the four quarter'd winds, robust and bold, Warp'd into tough knee-timber,* many a load!

* Knee-timber is found in the crooked arms of oak, which by reason of their distortion, are easily adjusted to the angle formed where the deck and the ship's sides meet.

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