When down I slipt, with all my care,
And headlong fell through yielding air;
Thinking next moment to be crush'd,
I wak'd, and thus my fears are hush'd:
Instead of fractur'd skull, I find,
I'm where my head last night reclin❜d.
How came this dream into my head?
Perhaps I've lain too long in bed,
And should have slept away the light,
Had it not been for this sore fright.
'Tis plainly so I see the sun
Already has his race begun;
Diffusing with his golden rays,
His great Creator's lofty praise.
"Shake off your sleep, my drowsy eyes,
Begin thy race," bright Phoebus cries;
"Me, in my course, unwearied see;
Rise, sluggish man, and follow me;
For sleep my light was never given,
But to mark out thy road to heaven."
SWEET is the breath of morn; her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds: pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew: fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train.
THE meek-eyed morn appears; mother of dews;
At first, faint-gleaming in the dappl'd east;
Till, far o'er æther, spreads the widening glow,
And from before the lustre of her face,
White break the clouds away. With quicken'd step,
Brown Night retires: young Day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
The dripping rock; the mountain's misty top,
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue through the dusk, the smoking currents shine;
And, from the bladed field, the fearful hare
Limps awkward, while along the forest glade
The wild deer trip; and, often turning, gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes;
The native voice of undissembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns resound.
Falsely luxurious! will not man awake;
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,
To meditation due, and sacred song?
For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?
To lie in dead oblivion, loosing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life;
Total extinction of the enlightened soul;
Or else, to feverish vanity alive.
Wildered and tossing through distemper'd dreams?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than nature craves; when every muse
And every blooming pleasure, wait without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?
BUT, yonder comes the powerful king of day,
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow
Illumin'd with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo, now apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colour'd air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad,
And sheds the shining day, that burnish'd plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering
High gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer, Light!
Of all material beings first and best!
Efflux divine! Nature's resplendant robe!
Without whose vesting beauty, all were wrapt
In unessential gloom. And, thou, O Sun,.
Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen,
Shines out thy Maker! may I sing of thee?
'Tis by thy secret, strong attractive force, As with a chain indissoluble bound,
The system rolls entire; from the far bourne
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round
Of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk
Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,
Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.
The vegetable world, is also thine,
Parent of seasons! who the pomp precede
That waits thy throne; as through thy vast domain,
Annual, along the bright ecliptic road,
In world rejoicing state, it moves sublime.
While round thy beaming car,
High seen, the seasons lead in sprightly dance,
Harmonious knit, the rosy-finger'd hours;
The zephyrs floating loose, the timely rains;
Of bloom etherial, the light-footed dews;
And soften'd into joy, the surly storms.
These, in successive turn, with lavish hand,
Shower every beauty, every frgrance shower;
Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy
touch,
From land to land, is flush'd the vernal year,
Nor to the surface of enlivened earth,
Graceful with hills and dales, and leafy woods,
Her liberal tresses, is thy force confin'd;
But to the bowel'd cavern, darting deep,
The mineral kinds confess thy mighty power.
The unfruitful rock itself, impregn'd by thee,
In dark retirement, forms the lucid stone.
The lively diamond drinks thy purest rays,
Collected light, compact.
At thee, the ruby lights its deepening glow,
And with a waving radiance, inward flames.
The very dead creation, from thy touch,
Assumes a mimic life. By thee refin'd,
In brighter mazes, the relucent stream
Plays o'er the mead. The precipice abrupt,
Projecting horror on the blacken'd flood,
Softens at thy return. The desert joys
Wildly through all his melancholy bounds.
Rude ruins glitter; and the briny deep,
Seen from some pointed promontory's top,
Far to the blue horizon's utmost verge,
Restless, reflects a floating gleam. But this,
And all the much-transported muse can sing,
Are to thy beauty, dignity, and use,
Unequal far; great delegated source
Of light, and life, and grace, and joy below.
How shall I, then, attempt to sing of him,
Who, light himself, in uncreated light
Invested deep, dwells awfully retir'd
From mortal eye, or angels' purer ken.
Whose single smile has, from the first of time,
Fill'd, overflowing, all the lamps of heaven,
That beam for ever through the boundless sky.
But should he hide his face, the astonish'd sun
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