Thus, with indulgence most severe she treats
Us spendthrifts of inestimable time;
Unnoted, notes each moment misapply'd:
In leaves more durable than leaves of brass,
Writes our whole history; which death shall read
In ev'ry pale delinquent's private ear;
And judgment publish; publish to more worlds
Than this; and endless age in groans resound.
1. To the dark and silent tomb,
Soon I hasted from the womb;
Scarce the dawn of life began,
Ere I measur'd out my span,
2. 1-no smiling pleasures kuew!
I no gay delights could view;
Joyless sojourner was I,
Only bern to weep and die.
3. Happy infant, early bless'd!
Rest in peaceful slumber, rest!
Early rescu'd from the cares,
Which increase with growing years.
4. No delights are worth thy stay,
Smiling as they seem and gay:
Short and sickly are they all,
Hardly tasted ere they pall.
5. All our gaiety is vain,
All our laughter is but pain;
Lasting only and divine,
Is an innocence like thine.
1. HAIL, beauteous stranger of the wood,
Attendant on the sping!
Now heav'n repairs thy rural seat,,
And woods thy welcome sing,
2. Soon as the daisey decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear; -
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?
3. Delighful visitant! with thee
I hail the time of flow'rs,
When heav'n it fill'd with music sweet
Of birds among the bow'rs.
4. The school-boy, wand'ring in the wood,
To pull the flow'rs so gay,
Starts, thy curious voice to hear,
And imitates thy lay.
5. Soon as the pea puts on her bloom,
Thou fly'st thy vocal vale,
An annual guest in other lands,
Another spring to hail.
6. Sweet bird! thy bow'r is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year!
7. O could I fly, I'd fly with thee;
We'd make, with social wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring.
1. In the barn the tenant cock,
Close to Partlet perch'd on high,
Briskly crows, (the shepherd's clock !).
Jocund that the morning's nigh.
2. Swiftly from the mountain's brow,
Shadows, nurs'd by night retire:
And the peeping sun-beam, now
Paints with gold the village spire.
3, Philomel forsakes the thorn,
Plaintive where she prates at night
And the lark to meet the morn,
Soars beyond the shepherd's sight. 4. From the low roof'd cottage ridge,
See the chatt'ring swallow spring; Darting through the one-arch'd bridge,. Quick she dips her dappled wing. 5. Now the pine tree's waving top Gently greets the morning gale ; Kidlings now begin to crop Dasies, on the dewy dale.
. From the balmy sweets uncloy'd, (Restless till her task be done,) Now the busy bee's employ'd Sipping dew before the sun.
7. Trickling through the crevic'd rock, Where the limpid streem distils, Sweet refreshment waits the flock, When 'tis sun-drove from the bills. . Colin's for the promis'd corr.
(Ere the harvest hopes are ripe) Anxious; whilst the huntsman's horn, Boldly sounding, drowns his pipe. 9. Sweet--O Sweet the warbling throng, On the white enblossom'd spray! Natures universal song
Echoes to the rising day..
10. Fervid on the glitt'ring flood, Now the noen-tide radiance glows ~ Drooping o'er its infant bud,
Not a dew-drop's left the rose. 11. By the brook the shepherd dines, From the fierce meridian heat, Shelter'd by the branching pines, Pendant o'er his grassy seat.
12. Now the flock forsakes the glade, Where uncheck'd the sun-beams fall, Sure to find a pleasing shade
By the ivy'd abbey wall.
13. Echo, in her airy round,
O'er the river, rock and hill,
Cannot catch a single sound,
Save the clack of yonder mill
14. Cattle court the zephyrs bland,
Where the streamlet wanders cool;
Or with languid silence stand
Midway in the marshy pool.
15. But from mountain, dell, or stream,
Not a flutt'ring zephyr springs;
Fearful lest the noon-tide beam
Scorch its soft, its silken wings.
16. Not a leaf has leave to stir,
Nature's lull'd-serene--and still!
Quiet e'en the shepherd's cur,
Sleeping on the heath-clad hill.
17. Languid is the landscape round,
Till the fresh descending show'r,
Grateful to the thirsty ground,
Raises ev'ry fainting flow'r.
18. Now the hill-the hedge-are green; Now the warbler's throats in tune; Blithsome is the verdant scene,
Brightened by the beams of noon
19. O'er the heath the heifer strays
Free (the furrow'd task is done)
Now the village windows blaze,
Burnish'd by the setting sun.
20. Now he sets behind the bill,
Sinking from a golden sky:
Can the pencil's mimic skill
Copy the refulgent dye?
21. Trulging as the ploughmen go,
(To the smoking hamlet bound,}
Giant like their shadows grow
Lengthen'd o'er the level ground
22. Where the rising forest spreads
Shelter for the lordly dome!
To their high built airy beds,
See the rooks returning home
28. As the lark, with vari'd tune,
Carols to the ev'ning loud;
Mark the mild resplendent moon,
Breathing through a parted cloud
Now the hermit wiet geeps
From the barn or twisted brake;
And the blue mist slowly creeps,
Curling on the silver lake.
25. As the trout in speckled pride,
Playful from its bosom springs.
To the banks a ruffled tide
Verges in successive rings.
26. Tripping through the silken grass
O'er the path-divided dale
Mark the rose complexion'd lass
With her well-pois'd milking pail
27. Linnets with unnumber'd notes,
And the cuckoo bird with two,
Tuning sweet their mellow throats,
Bid the setting sun adieu.
1. SEE thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth,
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Nature ethereal, human; angél, man;
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing. On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours.
Or in the whole creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyi
From natnre's chain, whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
2. And if each system in gradation roll,
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all,
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns. run lawless through the sky
Lt ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd
Bing on being wreck'dand world on world;
|