When the pure soul is from the body flown, No more shall Night's alternate reign be known; The sun no more shall rolling light bestow, But from the Almighty streams of glory flow. Oh! may some nobler thought my soul employ, Than empty, transient, sublunary joy!
The stars shall drop, the sun shall lose his flame, But Thou, O GOD! for ever shine the same..
CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.-Canto ii. Stanza 3.
I CARE not, Fortune, what you me deny : You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shews her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve; Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave; Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
THE SEASONS.-Summer, 1. 67.
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, losing half The fleeting moments of too short a life; Total extinction of th' enlightened soul ! Or else to feverish vanity alive,
Wildered, and tossing thro' 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?
"Tis done! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies! How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends His desolate domain. Behold, fond man! See here thy pictur'd life; pass some few years, Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength, The sober Autumn fading into age,
And pale concluding Winter comes at last, And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid hopes Of happiness? those longings after fame?
Those restless cares? those busy bustling days? Those gay-spent festive nights? those veering thoughts
Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life? All now are vanish'd! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal never-failing friend of man, His guide to happiness on high. And see! 'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth Of heaven and earth! awakening Nature hears The new creating word, and starts to life, In every heightened form, from pain and death For ever free. The great eternal scheme, Involving all, and in a perfect whole Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads, To Reason's eye refin'd clears up apace. Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now, Confounded in the dust, adore that Power And Wisdom oft arraign'd: see now the cause, Why unassuming Worth in secret liv'd, And died neglected; why the good man's share In life was gall and bitterness of soul; Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd In starving solitude, while Luxury
In palaces lay straining her low thought, To form unreal wants; why heaven-born Truth And Moderation fair wore the red marks Of Superstition's scourge; why licens'd Pain, That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe, Imbittered all our bliss. Ye good distrest! Ye noble few! who here unbending stand Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up a while; And what your bounded view, which only saw A little part, deem'd evil, is no more: The storms of wint'ry time will quickly pass, And one unbounded spring encircle all.
NATURE, attend! join, every living soul, Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, In adoration join, and, ardent, raise One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales, Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes :
Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms!
Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine Fills the brown shade with a religions awe. And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, Who shake the astonish'd world, lift high to heaven Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling 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,— 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 farthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the sum Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to me = Since GOD is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full;
And where He vital breathes there must be joy. When even at last the solemn hour shall come, And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers, Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go Where UNIVERSAL LOVE not smiles around, Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns ; From seeming evil still educing good, And better thence again, and better still, In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in Him, in light ineffable!
Come, then expressive silence, muse His praise..
FROM THE RUINS OF ROME.-Beginning and Conclusion.
ENOUGH of Grongar, and the shady dales Of winding Towy, Merlin's fabled haunt, sung inglorious. Now the love of arts, And what in metal or in stone remains
Of proud antiquity, through various realms And various languages and ages fam'd,
Bears me remote, o'er Gallia's woody bounds;
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