Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame?
Who that, from Alpine heights, his lab'ring eye
Shoots round the wide horizon, to furvey
Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave
Thro' mountains, plains, thro' empires black with fhade,.
And continents of fand! will turn his gaze
To mark the windings of a fcanty rill
That murmurs at his feet? The high-born foul
Difdains to reft her heav'n-aspiring wing
Beneath its native quarry. Tir'd of earth
And this diurnal fcene, the fprings aloft
Thro' fields of air; purfues the flying ftorm;
Rides on the volley'd light'nings thro' the heav'ns;
Or yok'd with whirlwinds and the northern blast,
Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high fhe foars
The blue profound, and hovering round the fun,
Beholds him pouring the redundant ftream
Of light; beholds his unrelenting. fway,
Bend the reluctant planets to abfolve
The fated rounds of time. Thence far effus'd
She darts her fwiftnefs up the long career
Of devious comets; thro' its burning figns
Exulting measures the perennial wheel
Of nature, and looks back on all the flars,
Whose blended light, as with a milky zone,
Invefts the orient. Now amaz'd the views
Th' empyreal wafte, where happy fpirits hold,
Beyond this concave heav'n, their calm abode ;..
And fields of radiance, whofe unfading light
Has travell'd the profound fix thousand years,
Nor yet arrives in fight of mortal things.
Ev'n on the barriers of the world untir'd
She meditates th' eternal depth below :
Till, half recoiling, down the headlong fteep
She plunges; foon o'erwhelm'd and fwallow'd up.
In that immenfe of being. There her hopes
Reft at the fated goal. For from the birth
Of mortal man, the fov'reign maker faid,
That not in humble nor in brief delight,
Not in the fading echoes of renown,
Power's purple robes, nor pleasure's flowery lap,
The foul should find enjoyment: but from these
Turning difdainful to an equal good,
Thro' all th' afcent of things enlarge her view,
Till every bound at length fhould disappear,
And infinite perfection close the scene.
CALL now to mind what high capacious pow'rs
Lie folded up in man: how far beyond
The praife of mortals, may th' eternal growth
Of nature to perfection half divine
Expand the blooming foul. What pity then
Should floth's unkindly fogs depress to earth
Her tender bloffom, choke the ftreams of life,
And blaft her fpring! Far otherwise defign'd
Almighty wifdom; nature's happy cares
Th' obedient heart far otherwife incline.
Witness the sprightly joy when ought unknown
Strikes the quick sense, and wakes each active pow'r
To brisker measures: witness the neglect
Of all familiar prospects, tho' beheld
With transport once; the fond attentive
Of young aftonishment; the fober zeal
Of age, commenting on prodigious things.
For fuch the bounteous providence of Heav'n,
In every breast implanting this defire
Of objects new and strange, to urge us on
With unremitted labour to pursue
Thofe facred ftores that wait the ripening foul,
In truth's exhaustlefs bofom. What need words
To paint its pow'r? For this, the daring youth
Breaks from his weeping mother's anxious arms,
In foreign climes to rove; the pensive sage,
Heedlefs of fleep, or midnight's harmful damp,
Hangs o'er the fickly taper; and untir'd
The virgin follows, with enchanted step,
The mazes of fome wife and wond'rous tale,
From morn to eve; unmindful of her form,
Unmindful of the happy dress that stole
The wishes of the youth, when every`maid
With envy pin'd. Hence finally by night
The village matron, round the blazing hearth,
Sufpends the infant audience with her tales,
Breathing aftonishment! of witching rhimes,
And evil fpirits; of the death-bed call
Of him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd
The orphan's portion; of unquiet fouls
Ris'n from the grave to ease the heavy guilt
Of deeds in life conceal'd; of shapes that walk
At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave
The torch of hell around the murd'rer's bed.
At every folemn pause the croud recoil
Gazing each other fpeechlefs, and congeal'd
With thiv'ring fighs till for th' event,
Around the beldame all erect they hàng,
Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'd.
THE HAMLET, WRITTEN IN WHICHWOOD FOREST.
THE hinds how bleft, who, ne'er beguil'd
To quit their hamlet's hawthorn-wild,
Nor haunt the crowd, nor tempt the main, For fplendid care and guilty gain!
When morning's twilight-tinctur'd-beam Strikes their low thatch with flanting, gleam, They rove abroad in ether blue,
To dip the fcy the in fragrant dew;
The fheaf to bind, the beech to fell,
That nodding fhades a craggy dell.
'Midit gloomy glades, in warbles clear,
Wild nature's fweeteft notes they hear :
On green untrodden banks they view
The hyacinth's neglected hue:
In their lone haunts and woodland rounds,
They fpy the fquirrel's airy bounds;
And ftartle from her afhen fpray,
Across the glen, the fcreaming jay;
Each native charm their steps explore
Of folitude's fequefter'd flore.
For them the moon with cloudless ray
Mounts, to illume their homeward way:
Their weary fpirits to relieve,
The meadows incenfe breathe at eve.
No riot mars the fimple fare
That o'er a glimmering hearth they share
But when the curfew's meafur'd roar
Duly, the dark'ning vallies o'er,
Has echo'd from the diftant town,
They with no beds of cygnet-down,
No trophied canopies, to close
Their drooping eyes in quick repose.
Their little fons, who spread the bloom
Of health around the clay-built room,
Or thro' the primros'd coppice ftray,
Or gambol in the new-mown hay;
Or quaintly braid the cowflip-twine,
Or drive afield the tardy kine;
Or haften from the fultry hill
To loiter at the fhady rill;
Or climb the tall pine's gloomy creft
To rob the raven's ancient neft.
Their humble porch with honeyed flow'rs
The curling woodbine's fhade embow'rs:
From the trim garden's thymy mound
Their bees in busy swarms refound.
Nor fell difeafe, before his time,
Haftes to cenfume life's golden prime:
But when their temples long have wore,
The filver crown of treffes hoar;
As ftudious ftill calm peace to keep,
Beneath a flow'ry turf they fleep.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE VAGRANT.
FOR him, who, loft to ev'ry hope of life,
Has long with fortune held unequal strife,
Known to no human love, no human care,
The friendlefs, homeless object of despair;
For the poor vagrant feel, while he complains,
Nor from fad freedom fend to fadder chains.
Perhaps on fome inhofpitable shore
The houseless wretch a widow'd paren't bore;
Who, then no more by golden profpects led,
Of the poor Indian begg'd a leafy bed.
Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent mourn'd her soldier flain:
Bent o'er her babe, her eye diffolv'd in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the fad presage of his future years,
The child of mifery baptiz'd in tears!
C ¢
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