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While in the confidence of pray'r,

My soul took hold of thee.

For though in dreadful whirls we hung
High on the broken wave,

I knew thou wert not slow to hear,
Nor impotent to save.

The storm was laid, the winds retir'd,
Obedient to thy will;

The sea that roar'd at thy command,
At thy command was still.

In midst of dangers, fears, and deaths,
Thy goodness I'll adore;

And praise thee for thy mercies past,
And humbly hope for more;

My life, if thou preserve my life,

Thy sacrifice shall be;

And death, if death must be my doom,

Shall join my soul to thee.

SECTION XXII.

HYMN ON A REVIEW OF THE SEASONS.

ADDISON.

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 ev'ry sense, and ev'ry 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 or groves, in hollow whisp'ring 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

Misterious 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 soft'ning into shade,
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wand'ring 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, steeming, thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds ev'ry creature, hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join ev'ry living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join! and, ardent, raise
One gen'ral song!

Ye, chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn!

For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows; the summer ray
Russets the plain; inspiring autumn gleams;
Or winter rises in the black'ning east;

Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more,
And dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!

Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green carth, to distant barb'rous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on th' Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to me;
Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full;
And where HE vital breaths there must be joy.
When e'en at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new pow'rs,"
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go
Where UNIVERSAL LOVE not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their sups;
From seeming evil still educing good,

258

The English Reader.

And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose

Myself in HIM, in light ineffable!

Part 2,

Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise. THOMSON.

SECTION XXIII.

ON SOLITUDE.

O SOLITUDE, romantic maid!
Whether by nodding towers you tread,
Or haunt the desert's trackless gloom,
Or hover o'er the yawning tomb,
Or climb the Andes' clifted side,
Or by the Nile's coy source abide,
Or, starting from your half-year sleep,
From Hecla view the thawing deep,
Or, at the purple dawn of day,
Tadmor's marble wastes survey;
You, recluse, again I woo,
And again your steps pursue.

Plum'd conceit himself surveying,
Folly with her shadow playing,
Purse-proud elbowing insolence,
Bloated empiric, puff'd pretence,
Noise that through a trumpet speaks,
Laughter in loud peals that breaks,
Intrusion, with a fopling's face,
(Ignorant of time and place,).
Sparks of fire dissension blowing,
Ductile, court-bred Aattery bowing,
Restraint's stiff neck, grimace's leer,
Squint-ey'd censure's artful sneer,
Ambition's buskins, steep'd in blood,
Fly thy presence, Solitude!

Sage reflection bent with years,
Conscious virtue, void of fears,
Muffled silence, wood-nymph shy,
Meditation's piercing eye,
Halcyon peace on moss reclin'd,

Health that snuffs the morning air,
Full-ey'd truth, with bosom bare,
Inspiration, nature's child,
Seek the solitary wild.

When all nature's hush'd asleep,
Nor love, nor guilt, their vigils keep,
Soft you leave your cavern'd den,
And wander o'er the works of men;
But when Phosphor brings the dawn,
By her dappled coursers drawn,
Again you to the wild retreat,,
And the early huntsman meet,
Where, as you pensive pace along,
You catch the distant shepherd's song,
Or brush from herbs the pearly dew,
Dr the rising primrose view,

Devotion lends her heaven-plum'd wings,
You mount, and nature with you sings.
But when the mid-day fervours glow,
To upland airy shades you go,

Where never sun-burnt woodman came,
Nor sportsman chas'd the timid game:
And there, beneath an oak reclin'd.
With drowsy waterfalls behind,
You sink to rest.

Till the tuneful bird of night,
From the neighb'ring poplar's height,
Wake you with her solemn strain,
And teach pleas'd echo to complain..

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200

The English Reader.

Then let me, sequester'd fair,
To your sybil grot repair:
On yon hanging cliff it stands,
Scoop'd by nature's plastic hands,
Bosom'd in the gloomy shade
Of cypress not with age decay'd;
Where the owl still hooting sits,
Where the bat incessant flits;
There in loftier strains I'll sing
Whence the changing seasons spring
Tell how storms deform the skies,
Whence the waves subside and rise,
Trace the comet's blazing tail,
Weigh the planets in a scale;
Bend, great God, before thy shrine;
The boundless macrocosm's thine.

Since in each scheme of life I've fail'd,

And disappointment seems entail'd ;
Since all on earth I valued most,

My guide, my stay, my friend, is lost;
O Solitude, now give me rest,
And hush the tempest in my breast.
O gently deigu to guide my feet
To your hermit-trodden seat;
Where I may live at last my own,
Where I at last may die unknown.
I spoke she tun'd her magic ray,
And thus she said, or seem'd to say:

Youth, you're mistaken, if you think to find
In shades, a med'cine for a troubled mind:
Wan grief will haunt you wheresoe'er you go,
Sigh in the breeze, and in the streamlet flow.
There, pale inaction pines his life away;
And satiate mourns the quick return of day:
There naked frenzy, laughing wild with pain,
Or bares the blade, or plunges in the main :
There, superstition broods o'er all her fears,
And yells of demons in the zephyr hears.
But if a hermit you're resoy'd to dwell,
And bid to social life a last farewell;
"Tis inipious.--

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Part 2

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