English

Tho' numberless each tribe and species fair,
Who wing the noon, and brighten in the blaze,
Innumerous as the sands which bend the seas;
These have their organs, arts, and arms, and tools,
And functions exercised by various rules;
The saw, axe, auger, trowel, piercer, drill;
The neat alembick, and nectareous still:
Their peaceful hours the loom and distaff know;
But war, the force and fury of the foe,
The spear, the fauchion, and the martial mail,
And artful stratagem where strength may fail.

Towards the four winds four telescopes he bends,
And on his own astrology depends;
Assured he glides beneath the smiling calm,
Bathes in the dew, and sips the morning balm;
The peach this pampering epicure devours,
And climbing on the topmost fruitage towers.

Such have we cull'd from nature's reptile scene,
Least accurate of all the wondrous train,
Who plunged recluse in silent caverns sleep;
Or multipede, earth's leafy verdure creep;
Or on the pool's new mantling surface play,

THUS Nature's frame, and Nature's GOD we sing,
And trace even Life to its Eternal S PRING —
The Eternal S PRING ! whence streaming bounty flows;
The Eternal L IGHT ! whence every radiance glows;
The Eternal H EIGHT of indetermin'd space!
The Eternal D EPTH of Condescending Grace!
S UPREME ! and M IDST ! and P RINCIPLE ! and E ND !
The Eternal F ATHER ! and the Eternal Friend !
The Eternal L OVE ! WHO bounds in every breast;
The Eternal B LISS ! whence every creature's blest —
While man, even man, the lavish goodness shares,

The sight how grateful to the social soul,
That thus imbibes the blessings of the whole,
Joys in their joy, while each inspires his breast
With blessings multiplied from all that's blest!
Nor less yon heights the unfolding heaven display,
Its nightly twinkle, and its streaming day;
The page impress'd conspicuous on the skies,
A preface to the Book of Glory lies;
We mount the steep, high born upon delight,
While hope aspires beyond — and distances the sight.
Thus heaven and earth, whom varying graces deck,

Proficient whence, the liquid confluence meet,
And thro' the gulph their kindred ocean greet,
Urg'd by the moon, abjure the pearly shore,
And travel whence they sprung — to travel as before.

How the song smiles, should deeming censure chide
As disproportion'd, thro' allusion wide!
What tho' we join this globe's ennumber'd frame,
The deep unfathom'd, and the copious stream,
With all the appendage of incumbent skies,
To match the frame of animalcule size —
Our theme no great (of One exclusive) knows;

Thou Thanks expressive from the moistening eye!
Thou pledge assured of firm Dependence dear,
Reposed on O MNIPRESENCE , ever near — —
Thro' all that breathe, waft, waft thy hallow'd gale,
And let the universal wish exhale;
In symphony of vocal transport raise,
And mount to Heaven the tributary praise!
Whence, happy creatures! all your blessings flow,
Your voice to praise Him , and your skill to know;
Whence, as the drops that deck the morning's robe,
And gem the bosom of the twinkling globe,

BOOK IV.

Fresh from his task, the rising bard aspires,
And all his bosom glows with recent fires:
L IFE , L IFE , new forms and constitutes the theme!
The song too kindles in the vital flame,
Whose vivid principle diffusive spreads,
And thro' our strain contagious rapture sheds.
Whate'er the spark, the light, the lamp, the ray,
Essence or effluence of E SSENTIAL D AY ,
Substance, or transubstantiate, and inshrined,
Soul, Spirit, Reason, Intellect, or Mind;

The flowers forensic beauties now admire,
The impalement, foliation, down, attire,
Couch'd in the pannicle, or mantling veil,
That intercepts the keen, or drenching gale;
Its infant bud here swathed with fostering care,
Or fledg'd and opening to the ambient air;
Or bloom dilated in the silken rose,
That flush'd mature, with kindling radiance glows;
Or shrunk in covert of its mantling bower,
(Now ushers evening cool, or chilling shower)
And skill'd prophetic, with eluding form,
Anticipates approach of ruffling storm.

Or cool recess of odoriferous shade,
And fan the peasant in the panting glade;
Or lace the coverture of painted bower,
While from the enamell'd roof the sweet profusions shower.
Here duplicate, the range divides beneath,
Above united in a mantling wreath;
With continuity protracts delight,
Imbrown'd in umbrage of ambiguous night;
Perspicuous the vista charms our eye,
And opens, Janus like, to either sky;
Or stills attention to the feather'd song,
While echo doubles from the warbling throng.

And intersected horizon, arise.
See, wondrous thus how each sagacious root,
As marksmen, to their several signals shoot;
What Cause revers'd the separate bias guides,
And whence the still dissenting movement glides.

Their figures, pliant to some plastic S KILL ,
Alike obsequious to I TS secret W ILL ,
With pointed cone the yielding strata pass;
Or here, accumulate their bulbous mass;
Here bulky, taper, parted, or entire;
Here writhing, twist their complicated wire;
Here ramified, their forky branches spread;