Early rescu'd from the cares,

Which increase with growing years.
No delights are worth thy stay,
Smiling as they seem, and gay ;
Short and sickly are they all,
Hardly tasted ere they pall.
All our gaiety is vain,

All our laughter is but pain:
Lasting only and divine,
Is an innocence like thine.

SECTION XVIII,

The Cuckoo..

HAIL, beauteous stranger of the wood,
Attendant on the spring!

Now heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy we come sing.
Soon as the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear :
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?
Delightful visitant! with thee

I hail the time of flow'rs,

When heaven is fill'd with music sweet
Of birds among the bow'rs.

The school boy wand'ring in the wood,
To pull the flow'rs so gay,

Starts, thy curious voice to hear,
And imitates thy lay.

Soon as the pea puts on the bloom,
Thou fly'st thy vocal vale,

An annual guest, in other lands,

Another spring to hail.

Sweet bird! thy bow'r is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,

No winter in thy year.

O could I fly, I'd fly with thee:
We'd make, with social wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring.

SECTION XIX.

Day. A pastoral in three parts.

MORNING.

IN the barn the tenant cock,

Close to Partlet perch'd on high,
Briskly crows, (the shepherd's clock !)
Jocund that the morning's nigh.
Swiftly from the mountain's brow,
Shadows nurs'd by night retire ;
And the peeping sun-beam now,
Paints with gold the village spire.
Philomel forsakes the thorn,

Plaintive where she prates at night;
And the lark to meet the morn,

Soars beyond the shepherd's sight.
From the low roof'd cottage ridge,
See the chatt'ring swallow spring :
Darting through the one arch'd bridge,
Quick she dips her dappled wing.
Now the pine-tree's waving top
Gently greets the morning gale;
Kidlings, now, begin to crop
Daisies, on the dewy dale,
From the balmy sweets uncloy'd,
(Restless' till her task be done,)
Now the busy bee's employ'd,
Sipping dewbefore the sun.
Tricking through the crevic'd rock,
Where the limpid stream distils,
Sweet refreshment waits the flock,
When 'tis sun-drove from the hills.
Colin's for the promis'd corn,

(Ere the harvest hopes are ripe)
Anxious; while the huntsman's horn,
Boldly sounding, drowns his pipe.
Sweet, O sweet, the warbling throng,
On the white emblossom'd spray!
Nature's universal song

Echoes to the rising day.

NOON.

FERVID on the glitt'ring flood,

Now the noontide's radiance glows: Drooping o'er its infant bud,

Not a dew drop's left the rose.

By the brook the shepherd dines,
From the fierce meridian heat,
Shelter'd by the branching pines,
Pendant o'er his grassy seat.

Now the flock forsakes the glade,
Where uncheck'd the sun-beams fall,
Sure to find a pleasing shade

By the ivy'd abbey's wall.

Echo, in her airy round,

O're the river, rock, and hill, Cannot catch a single sound,

Save the clack of yonder mill,

Cattle court the zephyrs bland,
Where the streamlet wanders cool;
Or with languid silence stand
Midway in the marshy pool.

But from mountain, dell, or stream,
Not a flutt'ring zephyr springs;
Fearful lest the noontide beam
Scorch its soft its silken wings.
Not a leaf has leave to stir,

Nature's pl'd, serene, and still
Quiet e'en the shepherd's cur,
Sleeping on the heath clad hill.
Languid is the landscape round,
Till the fresh descending show'
Grateful to the thirsty ground,
Raises every fainting flower.
Now the hill, the hedge, are green,
Now the warbler's throat's in tune;
Blithesome is the verdant scene,
Brighten by the beams of noon!

EVENING.

O'ER the heath the heifer strays
Free, (the furrow'd task is done,)
Now the village windows blaze,
Burnish'd by the setting sun,
Now he sets behind the hill,
Sinking from a golden sky;
Can the pencil's mimic skill'
Copy the refulgent dye ?
Trudging as the ploughmen go,
(To the smoaking hamlet bound)
Giant like their shadow's grow,
Lengthen❜d o'er the level ground.
Where the rising forest spreads
Shelter for the lordly dome !
To their high built airy beds,
See the rooks returning home!
As the lark with vary'd tune,
Carols to the evʼning loud;
Mark the mild resplendent moon,
Breaking through a parted cloud.
Now the hermit howlet peeps

From the barn or twisted brake ;
And the blue mist slowly creeps,
Curling on the silver lake.

As the trout in speckled pride,
Playful from its bosom springs
To the banks a ruffled tide
Verges in successive rings.

Tripping through the silken grass,
O'er the path divided dale,
Mark the rose complexion'd lass
With her well pois'd milking pail !

Linnets with unnumber'd notes,
And the cuckoo bird with two,
Tuning sweet their medlow throats,
Bid the setting sun adieu.

SUNNINGHAM.

SECTION XX.

The order of Nature.

SEE, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go !
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Nature ethereal, human, angel, man.:
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing. On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation roll,

Alike essential to the amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth, unbalanc'd, from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless, through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world:
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature trembles to the throne of God.
All this dread ORDER break, for whom? for thee?
Vile worm! Oh madness! pride! impiety!

What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,

Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd, for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame :
Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing MIND OF ALL ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul:
That chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;