His fhelt'ring fide, and wilfully forewent
That converse which we now in vain regret.
How gladly would the man recall to life
The boy's neglected fire! a mother too,
That fofter friend, perhaps more gladly still,
Might he demand them at the gates of death.
Sorrow has, fince they went, fubdu'd and tam'd
The playful humour; he could now endure,
(Himself grown fober in the vale of tears)
And feel a parent's presence no restraint.
But not to understand a treasure's worth
Till time has ftol'n away the flighted good,
Is caufe of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the world the wilderness it is.
The few that pray at all pray oft amifs,
And seeking grace t' improve the prize they hold,
Would urge a wiser suit than asking more.
The night was winter in his roughest mood The morning fharp and clear. But now at noon Upon the fouthern fide of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast,
The feafon fmiles, refigning 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 th' embattled tow'r
Whence all the mufic. I again perceive
The foothing influence of the wafted strains,
And fettle in foft mufings as I tread
The walk, ftill verdant, under oaks and elms,
Whofe outfpread branches overarch the glade.
The roof, though moveable through all its length
As the wind fways it, has yet well suffic'd,
And, intercepting in their filent fall
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me.
No noife is here, or none that hinders thought.
The redbreaft warbles ftill, but is content
With flender notes, and more than half fupprefs'd:
Pleas'd with his folitude, and flitting light
From fpray to fpray, where'er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice,
That tinkle in the wither'd leaves below.
Stillness, accompanied with founds so soft,
Charms more than filence. Meditation here
May think down hours to moments.
May give an useful leffon 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 smooth'd and squar'd and fitted to its place,
Does but incumber whom it feems t' enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wifdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells,
By which the magic art of fhrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall'd.
Some to the fafcination of a name
Surrender judgment, hood-wink'd. Some the ftyle
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds
Of error leads them by a tune entranc'd.
While floth reduces more, too weak to bear
The infupportable fatigue of thought,
And swallowing, therefore, without pause or choice,
The total grift unfifted, husks and all.
But trees and rivulets whose rapid course
Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer,
And fheep-walks populous with bleating lambs,
And lanes in which the primrose ere her time
Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root,
Deceive no ftudent. Wisdom there, and truth,
Not fhy, as in the world, and to be won
By flow folicitation, feize at once
The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.
What prodigies can pow'r divine perform
More grand than it produces year by year,
And all in fight of inattentive man?
Familiar with th' effect we flight the cause,
And, in the conftancy of nature's course,
The regular return of genial months,
And renovation of a faded world,
See nought to wonder at.
As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race
Of the undeviating and punctual fun,
How would the world admire! but fpeaks it lefs
An agency divine, to make him know
His moment when to fink and when to rife,
Age after age, than to arreft his course?
All we behold is miracle; but, feen
So duly, all is miracle in vain.
Where now the vital energy that mov'd,
While fummer was, the pure and subtile lymph
.Through th' imperceptible meand'ring veins
Of leaf and flow'r? It fleeps; and th' icy touch
Of unprolific winter has imprefs'd
A cold ftagnation on th' inteftine tide.
But let the months go round, a few fhort months,
And all shall be reftor'd. These naked fhoots,
Barren as lances, among which the wind
Makes wintry mufic, fighing 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 loft.
Then, each in its peculiar honours clad,
Shall publish, even to the distant eye,
Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich
In ftreaming gold; fyringa, iv'ry pure;
The scentless and the fcented rofe; this red,
And of an humbler growth, the * other tall,
And throwing up into the darkest gloom
Of neighb'ring cypress, or more fable yew,
Her filver globes, light as the foamy surf
That the wind fevers from the broken wave;
The lilac, various in array, now white,
Now fanguine, and her beauteous head now fet
With purple spikes pyramidal, as if,
Studious of ornament, yet unrefolv'd
Which hue the most approv'd, fhe chose them all;
Copious of flow'rs the woodbine, pale and wan,
But well compenfating her fickly looks
With never-cloying odours, early and late;
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