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, Embitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distress'd! 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 wintry time will quickly pass, And one unbounded Spring encircle all.
THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these, Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Wide-flush the fields; the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; And every sense, and every heart, is joy. Then comes thy glory in the summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year; And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks - And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales. Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfin'd, And spreads a common feast for all that lives. In Winter, awful thou! with clouds and storms Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd, Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing Riding sublime, thou bidd'st the world adore, And humblest nature with thy northern blast. Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep-felt, in these appear! a simple train, Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combin'd; Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade; And all so forming an harmonious whole; That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze, Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand, That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ; Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring; Flings from the sun direct the flaming day; Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth; And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, With transport touches all the springs of life.
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 religious awe. And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, Who shake the astonish'd world, lift high to heaven The 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.
Soft-roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
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