And feel a parent's presence no restraint. But not to understand a treasure's worth, Till time has stol'n away the slighted good, Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the World the wilderness it is. The few that pray at all pray oft amiss,
And, seeking grace t' improve the prize they hold, Would urge a wiser suit than asking more.
The night was winter in his roughest mood; The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon Upon the southern side of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast, The season smiles, resigning all its rage, And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue Without a cloud, and white without a speck The dazzling splendour of the scene below. Again the harmony comes o'er the vale ; And through the trees I view th' embattled tow'r, Whence all the music. I again perceive The soothing influence of the wafted strains, And settle in soft musings as I tread
The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms, Whose outspread branches overarch the glade. The roof, though moveable through all its length As the wind sways it, has yet well suffic'd, And, intercepting in their silent fall
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me. No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. The red-breast warbles still, but is content With slender notes, and more than half suppress'd; Pleas'd with his solitude, and flitting light From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes From many a twig the pendent drops of ice, That tinkle in the wither'd leaves below. Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, Charms more than silence. Meditation here May think down hours to moments. Here the heart May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books. Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, Have oft-times no connexion. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. Knowledge, a rude, unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds, Till smooth'd, and squar'd, and fitted to its place, Does but encumber whom it seems t' enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. Books are not seldom talismans and spells, By which the magic art of shrewder wits Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall'd. Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment, hoodwink'd. Some the style Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds Of error leads them, by a tune entranc'd. While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear The insupportable fatigue of thought,
And swallowing therefore without pause or choice The total grist unsifted, husks and all. But trees and rivulets, whose rapid course Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer, And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs, And lanes in which the primrose ere her time Peeps thro' the moss, that clothes the hawthorn root, Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth, Not shy, as in the world, and to be won By slow solicitation, seize at once
The roving thought, and fix it on themselves. What prodigies can pow'r divine perform More grand than it produces year by year, And all in sight of inattentive man? Familiar with th' effect we slight the cause, And in the constancy of nature's course, The regular return of genial months, And renovation of a faded world,
See naught to wonder at. Should God again, As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race Of the undeviating and punctual sun,
How would the world admire! but speaks it less, An agency divine, to make him know
His moment when to sink and when to rise, Age after age, than to arrest his course? All we behold is miracle; but seen
So duly, all is miracle in vain.
Where now the vital energy, that mov'd, While summer was, the pure and subtle lymph Through the imperceptible meand'ring veins Of leaf and flow'r? It sleeps; and th' icy touch Of unprolific winter has impress'd
A cold stagnation on th' intestine tide.
But let the months go round, a few short months, And all shall be restor❜d. These naked shoots, Barren as lances, among which the wind Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes, Shall put their graceful foliage on again, And more aspiring and with ampler spread, Shall boast new charms, and more than they have lost. Than each, in its peculiar honours clad, Shall publish even to the distant eye Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich In streaming gold; syringa, iv'ry pure; The scentless and the scented rose; this red, And of a humbler growth, the other* tall, And throwing up into the darkest gloom Of neighb'ring cypress, or more sable yew, Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf That the wind severs from the broken wave; The lilac, various in array, now white,
Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set With purple spikes pyramidal, as if
Studious of ornament, yet unresolv'd
Which hue she most approv'd, she chose them all;
Copious of flow'rs the woodbine, pale and wan, But well compensating her sickly looks, With never-cloying odours, early and late; Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm Of flow'rs, like flies clothing her slender rods, That scarce a leaf appears; mezereon too, Though leafless, well attir'd, and thick beset With blushing wreaths, investing ev'ry spray; Althea with the purple eye; the broom, Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloy'd, Her blossoms; and luxuriant above all The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, The deep, dark green of whose unvarnish'd leaf Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more, The bright profusion of her scatter'd stars.- These have been, and these shall be in their day; And all this uniform, uncolour'd scene Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load,
And flush into variety again.
From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, In Nature's progress, when she lectures man In heav'nly truth; evincing, as she makes The grand transition, that there lives and works A soul in all things, and that soul is God. The beauties of the wilderness are his, That makes so gay the solitary place, Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms, That cultivation glories in, are his.
He sets the bright procession on its way, And marshals all the order of the year;
He marks the bounds, which Winter may not pass, And blunts his pointed fury: in its case,
Russet and rude, folds up Uninjur'd, with inimitable art ;
And, ere one flow'ry season fades and dies, Designs the blooming wonders of the next. Some say that in the origin of things, When all creation started into birth,
The infant elements receiv'd a law,
From which they swerve not since. That under force Of that controlling ordinance they move, And need not his immediate hand, who first Prescrib'd their course, to regulate it now. Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God Th' encumbrance of his own concerns, and spare The great artificer of all that moves The stress of a continual act, the pain Of unremitted vigilance and care, As too laborious and severe a task.
So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems, To span omnipotence, and measure might, That knows no measure, by the scanty rule And standard of his own, that is to-day, And is not ere to-morrow's sun go down. But how should matter occupy a charge, Dull as it is, and satisfy a law
So vast in its demands, unless impell'd To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force, And under pressure of some conscious cause? The Lord of all, himself through all diffus'd, Sustains, and is the life of all that lives. Nature is but a name for an effect,
Whose cause is God. He feeds the sacred fire By which the mighty process is maintain'd, Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight Slow circling ages are as transient days; Whose work is without labour; whose designs No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts; And whose beneficence no charge exhausts. Him blind antiquity profan'd, not serv'd, With self-taught rites, and under various names, Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan, And Flora, and Vertumnus; peopling earth With tutelary goddesses and gods,
That were not; and commending as they would To each some province, garden, field, or grove.
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