I no smiling pleasures knew;
I no gay delights could view:
Joyless sojourner was 1,
Only born to weep and die.
Happy infant, early bless'd!
Rest, in peaceful slumber, rest;
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 heav'n repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome 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 heav'n 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.
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 sunbeam, 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 en
Sipping dew before the sun.
Trickling 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.
FERVID on the glitt'ring flood,
Now the noontide 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 sunbeams fall,
Sure to find a pleasing shade
By the ivy'd abbey wall.
Echo, in her airy round,
O'er 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 lull'd, serene and still!
Trudging as the ploughmen go,
(To the smoking hamlet bound,)
Giant-like their shadows 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 ev'ning loud;
Mark the mild resplendent moon,
Breaking through a parted cloud
Now the hermit owlet peeps
From the barn or twisted brak
And the blue mist slowly creeps
Curling on the silver lake,
As the trout in speckled pe,
Playful from its bosom prings;
To the banks a ruffled Ле
Verges in successivings.
X
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 etherial, 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 th' 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 wreek'd, and world on world;
Heav'n'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;
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