With never-cloying odours, early and late; Hypericum, all bloom, so thick a swarm Of flow'rs, like flies clothing her slender rods, That scarce a leaf appears; mezerion, too, Though leafless, well attir'd, and thick beset With blushing wreaths, investing ev'ry spray; Althea with the purple eye; the broom,
Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloy'd, Her blossoms; and, luxuriant above all, The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, The deep dark green of whose unvarnish'd leaf Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more The bright profusion of her scatter'd stars. These have been, and these shall be in their day; And all this uniform, uncolour'd scene,
Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load,
And flush into variety again.
From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, Is Nature's progress, when she lectures man In heav'nly truth; evincing, as she makes The grand transition, that there lives and works A soul in all things, and that soul is God. The beauties of the wilderness are his, That make so gay the solitary place
Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms That cultivation glories in, are his.
He sets the bright procession on its way, And marshals all the order of the year;
He marks the bounds which winter may not pass, And blunts his pointed fury; in its case,
Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ, Uninjur'd, with inimitable art;
And, ere one flow'ry season fades and dies, Designs the blooming wonders of the next. Some say, that, in the origin of things, When all creation started into birth, The infant elements receiv'd a law,
From which they swerve not since. That under force Of that controlling ordinance they move,
And need not his immediate hand, who first Prescrib'd their course, to regulate it now. Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God Th' incumbrance of his own concerns, and spare The great artificer of all that moves The stress of a continual act, the pain Of unremitted vigilance and care, As too laborious and severe a task. So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems, To span omnipotence, and measure might, That knows no measure, by the scanty rule And standard of his own, that is to-day, And is not ere to-morrow's sun go down! But how should matter occupy a charge, Dull as it is, and satisfy a law
So vast in its demands, unless impell'd To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force, And under pressure of some conscious cause? The Lord of all, himself through all diffus'd, Sustains, and is the life of all that lives. Nature is but a name for an effect,
Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire By which the mighty process is maintain❜d, Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight Slow-circling ages are as transient days; Whose work is without labour; whose designs No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts; And whose beneficence no charge exhausts. Him blind antiquity profan'd, not serv'd, With self-taught rites, and under various names, Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan, And Flora, and Vertumnus; peopling earth With tutelary goddesses and gods
That were not; and commending, as they would, To each some province, garden, field, or grove. But all are under one. One spirit-HIS
Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding browsRules universal nature. Not a flow'r
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain, Of his unrivall❜d pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues, And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes, In grains as countless as the sea-side sands, The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth. Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flow'r,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak To the green blade that twinkles in the sun, Prompts with remembrance of a present God! His presence, who made all so fair, perceiv'd,
Makes all still fairer. As with him no scene Is dreary, so with him all seasons please. Though winter had been none, had man been true, And earth be punish'd for its tenant's sake, Yet not in vengeance; as this smiling sky, So soon succeeding such an angry night,
And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream Recov'ring fast its liquid music, prove.
Who, then, that has a mind well strung and tun'd To contemplation, and within his reach
A scene so friendly to his fav'rite task, Would waste attention at the chequer'd board, His host of wooden warriors to and fro Marching and countermarching, with an eye As fix'd as marble, with a forehead ridg'd And furrow'd into storms, and with a hand Trembling, as if eternity were hung In balance on his conduct of a pin ?- Nor envies he aught more their idle sport, Who pant with application misapplied To trivial toys, and, pushing iv'ry balls Across a velvet level, feel a joy
Akin to rapture when the bawble finds Its destin'd goal, of difficult access.— Nor deems he wiser him, who gives his noon To miss, the mercer's plague, from shop to shop Wand'ring, and litt'ring with unfolded silks The polish'd counter, and approving none, Or promising with smiles to call again.- Nor him, who by his vanity seduc'd,
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