No bard could please me but whose lyre was tuned To Nature's praises. Heroes and their feats Fatigued me, never weary of the pipe Of Tityrus, assembling, as he sang,
The rustic throng beneath his favourite beech. Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms: New to my taste his Paradise surpassed The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue To speak its excellence. I danced for joy. I marvelled much that at so ripe an age As twice seven years, his beauties had then first Engaged my wonder; and admiring still, And still admiring, with regret supposed The joy half lost, because not sooner found. There too, enamoured of the life I loved, Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit Determined, and possessing it at last
With transports, such as favoured lovers feel, I studied, prized, and wished that I had known Ingenious Cowley! and, though now reclaimed By modern lights from an erroneous taste. I cannot but lament thy splendid wit Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools. I still revere thee, courtly though retired!
Though stretched at ease in Chertsey's silent bowers, Not unemployed; and finding rich amends.
For a lost world in solitude and verse.
"Tis born with all: the love of Nature's works Is an ingredient in the compound man
Infused at the creation of the kind.
And, though th' Almighty Maker has throughout Discriminated each from each, by strokes
And touches of his hand, with so much art Diversified, that two were never found Twins at all points--yet this obtains in all, That all discern a beauty in his works,
And all can taste them: minds that have been formed And tutored with a relish more exact,
But none without some relish, none unmoved. It is a flame, that dies not even there,
Where nothing feeds it: neither business, crowds, Nor habits of luxurious city life,
Whatever else they smother of true worth In human bosoms, quench it or abate. The villas with which London stands begirt, Like a swarth Indian, with his belt of beads, Prove it. A breath of unadulterate air, The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer The citizen, and brace his languid frame! E'en in the stifling bosom of the town,
A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms That soothe the rich possessor; much consoled, That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint, Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the well He cultivates. These serve him with a hint, That nature lives; that sight-refreshing green Is still the livery she delights to wear, Though sickly samples of th' exuberant whole What are the casements lined with creeping herbs, The prouder sashes fronted with a range Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed,
The Frenchman's darling?* are they not all proofs That man, immured in cities, still retains
His inborn inextinguishable thirst
Of rural scenes, compensating his loss
By supplemental shifts, the best he may?
The most unfurnished with the means of life, And they that never pass their brick-wall bounds, To range the fields, and treat their lungs with air, Yet feel the burning instinct: over head Suspend their crazy boxes, planted thick And watered duly. There the pitcher stands A fragment, and the spoutless tea-pot there; Sad witnesses how close-pent man regrets The country, with what ardour he contrives * Mignonnette.
A peep at Nature, when he can no more. Hail, therefore, patroness of health and ease, And contemplation, heart consoling joys, And harmless pleasures, in the thronged abode Of multitudes unknown; hail, rural life! Address himself, who will to the pursuit Of honours, or emolument, or fame; I shall not add myself to such a chase, Thwart his attempts, or envy his success. Some must be great. Great offices will have Great talents. And God gives to every man The virtue, temper, understanding, taste, That lifts him into life, and lets him fall Just in the niche he was ordained to fill. To the deliverer of an injured land He gives a tongue t' enlarge upon, a heart To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs; To monarchs dignity; to judges sense; To artists ingenuity and skill;
To me, an unambitious mind, content In the low vale of life, that early felt
A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long
Found here that leisure, and that ease I wished.
A FROSTY morning. The foddering of cattle.-The woodman and his dog. The poultry.-Whimsical effects of frost at a waterfall.-The empress of Russia's palace of ice.-Amusements of monarchs.-War, one of them.-Wars, whence. And whence monarchy. The evils of it.English and French loyalty contrasted.-The Bastile, and a prisoner there.-Liberty the chief recommendation of this country. Modern patriotism questionable, and why.-The perishable nature of the best human institutions.-Spiritual liberty not perishable. The slavish state of man by nature.-Deliver him, Deist, if you can.-Grace must do it.The respective merits of patriots and martyrs stated. Their different treatment.-Happy freedom of the man whom grace makes free.-His relish of the works of God.-Address to the Creator.
'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb Ascending, fires th' horizon; while the clouds, That crowd away before the driving wind, More ardent as the disk emerges more, Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, And, tinging all with his own rosy hue, From every herb and every spiry blade Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field. Mine, spindling into longitude immense, In spite of gravity, and sage remark That I myself am but a fleeting shade, Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance I view the muscular proportioned limb
Transformed to a lean shank. The shapeless pair, As they designed to mock me, at my side Take step for step; and, as I near approach The cottage, walk along the plastered wall, Preposterous sight! the legs without the man. The verdure of the plain lies buried deep Beneath the dazzling deluge: and the bents,
And coarser grass, unspearing o'er the rest, Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, And, fledged with icy feathers, not superb. The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait Their wonted fodder; not like hungering man, Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek,
And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay. He from the stack carves out th' accustomed load Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft, His broad keen knife into the solid mass; Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, With such undeviating and even force He severs it away: no needless care, Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned The cheerful haunts of man; to wield the axe, And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear, From morn to eve his solitary task. Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears, And tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur His dog attends him. Close behind his heel Now creeps he slow; and, now with many a frisk Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout; Then shakes his powdered coat, and barks for joy. Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught But now and then with pressure of his thumb T' adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube, That fumes beneath his nose; the trailing cloud Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. Now from the roots, or from the neighbouring pale, Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam Of smiling day, they gossip'd side by side
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