Admiring, fees her in her every shape;
Feels all her fiveet emotions at his heart;
Takes what the liberal gives, nor thinks of more.
He, when young Spring protrudes the bursting gems,
Marks the first bad, and fucks the healthful gale 1310
Into his freshen'd foul; her genial hours
He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows,
And not an opening bloffom breathes in vain.
In Summer he, beneath the living fhade,
Such as o'er frigid Tempe wont to wave,
Or Hemus cool, reads what the Mufe, of thefe,
Perhaps, has in immortal numbers fung;
Or what the dictates writes; and oft, an eye
Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.
When Autumn's yellow luftre gilds the world,
And tempts the fickled swain into the field,
Seiz'd by the general joy, his heart diftends
With gentle throws; and through the tepid gleams
Deep mufing, then he beft exerts his fong.
Ev'n Winter, wild to him, is full of blifs.
The mighty tempeft, and the hoary wafte,
Abrupt, and deep, ftretch'd o'er the buried earth,.
Awake to folemn thought. At night the skies,
Disclos'd, and kindled, by refining froft,
Pours every luftre on the exalted eye,
A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure,
And mark them down for wisdom. With swift wing, O'er land and fea imagination roams;
Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind,
Elates his being, and unfolds his powers;
Or in his breaft heroic virtue burns.
The touch of kindred too and love he feels;
The modeft eye, whose beams on his alone
Extatic fhine; the little ftrong embrace
Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck,
And emulous to please him, calling-forth
The fond parental foul. Nor purpose gay,
Amusement, dance, or fong, he fternly scorns;
For happiness and true philosophy
Are of the focial ftil, and fmiling kind.
This is the life which those who fret in guilt,
And guilty cities, never knew; the life,
Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt,
When angels dwelt, and God himself, with man!
Oh, Nature! all-fufficient! over all!
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Snatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonder there,
World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profufely scatter'd o'er the blue immense,
Shew me; their motions, periods, and their laws, 1355
Give me to scan; through the difclofing deep
Light my blind way; the mineral ftrata there;
Thruft, blooming, thence the vegetable world;
O'er that the rifing fyftem; more complex,
Of animals; and higher ftill, the mind,
The varied scene of quick-compounded thought,
And where the mixing paffions endless shift;
These ever open to my ravish'd eye;
A fearch, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust!
But if to that unequal; if the blood,
In fluggish ftreams about my heart, forbid
That beft ambition; under clofing fhades,
Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook,
And whisper to my dreams. From Thee begin,
Dwell all on Thee, with Thee conclude my fong;
And let me never, never ftray from Thee!
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