Thou smit'st the hills, and at th' Almighty blow
Their summits kindle and their inwards glow.
While this immortal spark of heav'nly flame
Distends my breast and animates my frame:
To thee my ardent praises shall be borne
On the first breeze that wakes the blushing
The latest star shall hear the pleasing sound,
And nature in full choir shall join around.
When full of thee my soul excursive flies
Through earth, air, ocean, or thy regal skies,
From world to world new wonders still I find,
And all the Godhead flashes on my mind;
When wing'd with whirlwinds, vice shall take
its flight
To the deep bosom of eternal night,
To thee my soul shall endless praises pay:
Join, men and angels, join th' exalted lay!
§ 9. Another Hymn. ANON. How are thy servants blest, O Lord!
How sure is their defence! Eternal wisdom is their guide,
Their help omnipotence.
In foreign realms, and lands remote,
Supported by thy care,
Through burning climes I pass'd unhurt,
And breath'd in tainted air.
Thy mercy sweeten'd every soil,
Made every region please;
The hoary Alpine hills it warmed,
And smooth'd the Tyrrhene seas.
Think, O my soul, devoutly think,
How with affrighted eyes
Thou saw'st the wide extended deep
In all its horrors rise!
Confusion dwelt in ev'ry face,
§ 10. Another Hymn, ANON WHEN, rising from the bed of death. O'erwhelm'd with guilt and fear, I see my Maker face to face,
O! how shall I appear?
If yet, while pardon may be found,
And mercy may be sought,
My heart with inward horror shrinks,
And trembles at the thought:
When thou, O Lord, shalt stand disclos'd
In majesty severe,
And sit in judgment on my soul,
O! how shall I appear?
But thou hast told the troubled soul,
Who does her sins lament,
The timely tribute of her tears
Shall endless woe prevent.
Then see the sorrows of my heart,
Ere yet it be too late :
And hear my Saviour's dying groans,
To give those sorrows weight.
For never shall my soul despair
Her pardon to procure,
Who knows thy only Son has died
To make that pardon sure.
§ 11. A Hymn on the Seasons. THOMSON.
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 every sense and every heart is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the Summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
When waves on waves, and gulphs in gulphs, Shoots full perfection through the swelling O'ercame the pilot's art.
Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord,
Thy mercy set me free;
While in the confidence of pray'r
My soul took hold on 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 preserv'st my life,
Thy sacrifice shall be;
And death, if death must be my doom,
Shall join my soul to thee.
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow whisp'ring
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 o'er tempest
Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing,
Riding sublime, Thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force
divine,
Deep-felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combin'd;
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade;
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with rude inconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty
hand
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ; Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, 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 every living soul
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and ardent raise
One general song! To him ye vocal gales
Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness
Oh talk of him in solitary glooms,
Where o'er the rock the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe!
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake th' astonish'd world, lift high to
heav'n
Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound:
Ye softer floods that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound his stupendous praise, whose greater
voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roaring fall.
So roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flow-
In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heav'n, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On nature write with every beam his praise.
The thunder rolls: be hushed the prostrate
world;
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound: the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd
reigns;
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. Ye woodlands, all awake; a boundless song Burst from the groves! and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm The listening shades, and teach the night his praise.
Ye chief for whom the whole creation smiles; At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! In swarming cities vast,
Assembled men to the deep organ join
The long resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;
And as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardor rise to heav'n.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove :
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of Seasons as they roll.
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 blackening 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
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on th' Atlantic isles, 'tis nought to
Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full;
And where He vital spreads, there must be
joy.
When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new pow-
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go
Where universal love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns :
From seeming evil still adducing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression.-But I lose
Myself in Him, in light ineffable!
Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise
12. Epistle II. JOHN LANGHORNE,
To William Langhorne, M. A. 1760. LIGHT heard his voice, and, eager to obey, From all her orient fountains burst away.
At Nature's birth, O! had the Power Divine Commanded thus the moral sun to shine, Beam'd on the mind all reason's influence bright,
And the full day of intellectual light, Then the free soul on Truth's strong pinion borne,
Had never languish'd in this shade forlorn.
Yet thus imperfect form'd, thus blind and
Doom'd by long toil a glimpse of truth to gain; Beyond its sphere shall human wisdom go, And boldly censure what it cannot know? 'Tis ours to cherish what Heav'n deign'd to give;
And thankful for the gift of being live.
Progressive powers, and faculties that rise From earth's low vale, to grasp the golden skies,
Though distant far from perfect, good, or fair,| "That, in proportion as each being stays Claim the due thought, and ask the grateful In perfect life, it rises and decays, [name, Is Nature's law-to forms alone confin'd, Come, then, thou partner of my life and The laws of matter act not on the mind. From one dear source, whom Nature form'd Too feebly, sure, its faculties must grow, And Reason brings her borrow'd light too slow."
Ally'd more nearly in each nobler part,
And more the friend, than brother of my heart!
Let us, unlike the lucid twins that rise
At different times, and shine in distant skies,
With mutual eye this mental world survey,
Mark the slow rise of intellectual day,
View reason's source, if man the source may
find,
And trace each science that exalts the mind. "Thou self-appointed lord of all below! Ambitious man, how little dost thou know? For once let Fancy's towering thoughts subside,
Look on thy birth, and mortify thy pride!
A plaintive wretch, so blind, so helpless born,
The brute sagacious might behold with scorn.
How soon, when Nature gives him to the day,
In strength exulting, does he bound away;
By instinct led, the fostering teat he finds,
Sports in the ray, and shuns the searching
winds.
No grief he knows, he feels no groundless fear,
Feeds without cries, and sleeps without a tear.
Did he but know to reason and compare,
See here the vassal, and the master there,
What strange reflections must the scene afford,
That shew'd the weakness of his puling lord!"
Thus sophistry unfolds her specious plan,
Form'd not to humble, but depreciate man.
Unjust the censure, if unjust to rate
His pow'rs and merits from his infant-state.
For, grant the children of the flow'ry vale
By instinct wiser, and of limbs more hale,
With equal eye their perfect state explore,
And all the vain comparison's no more.
"But why should life, so short by Heav'n
ordain'd,
Be long to thoughtless infancy restrain'd―
To thoughtless infancy, or vainly sage,
Mourn through the languors of declining age?"
O blind to truth! to Nature's wisdom blind!
And all that she directs, or Heav'n design'd!
Behold her works in cities, plains, and groves,
Or life that vegetates, and life that moves!
In due proportion, as each being stays
In perfect life, it rises and decays.
[hour,
Is man long helpless? Through each tender
See love parental watch the blooming flow'r!
By op'ning charms, by beauties fresh display'd,
And sweets unfolding, see that love repaid!
Has age its pains? For luxury it may-
The temp'rate wear insensibly away,
While sage experience and reflection clear
Beam a gay sunshine on life's fading year.
But see from age, from infant weakness see, That man was destin'd for society; There from those ills a safe retreat behold, Which young might vanquish, or afflict him old.
O! still censorious? art thou then possest Of reason's power, and does she rule thy breast?
Say what the use-had Providence assign'd
To infant years maturity of mind?
That thy pert offspring, as their father wise,
Might scorn thy precepts, and thy pow'r de-
spise ?
Or mourn, with ill-match'd faculties at strife,
O'er limbs unequal to the task of life?
To feel more sensibly the woes that wait
On every period, as on every state;
And slight, sad convicts of each painful truth,
The happier trifles of unthinking youth?
Conclude we then the progress of the mind
Ordain'd by wisdom infinitely kind :
No innate knowledge on the soul imprest,
No birthright instinct acting in the breast,
No natal light, no beam from Heav'n display'd,
Dart through the darkness of the mental shade.
Perceptive powers we hold from Heav'n's de-
Alike to knowledge as to virtue free;
In both a liberal agency we bear,
The moral here, the intellectual there;
And hence in both an equal joy is known,
The conscious pleasure of an act our own.
When first the trembling eye receives the day,
External forms on young perception play;
External forms affect the mind alone,
Their diff'rent pow'rs and properties un-
known.
See the pleas'd infant court the flaming brand,
Eager to grasp the glory in its hand!
The crystal wave as eager to pervade,
Stretch its fond arms to meet the smiling
When Memory's call the mimic words obey,
And wing the thought that falters on its way;
When wise experience her slow verdict draws,
The sure effect exploring in the Cause,
In Nature's rude, but not unfruitful wild,
Reflection springs, and Reason is her child.
On her fair stock the blooming scion grows,
And brighter through revolving seasons blows.
All beauteous flower! immortal shalt thou
When dim with age yon golden orbs decline; Thy orient bloom unconscious of decay, Shall spread, and flourish in eternal day.
O! with what art, my friend, what early
Should wisdom cultivate a plant so fair!
How should her eye the rip'ning mind revise,
And blast the buds of folly as they rise!
How should her hand with industry restrain
The thriving growth of passion's fruitful train,
Aspiring weeds, whose lofty arms would tow'r
With fatal shade o'er reason's tender flow'r!
From low pursuits the ductile mind to save,
Creeds that contract, and vices that enslave;
O'er life's rough seas its doubtful course to
steer,
Unbroke by av'rice, bigotry, or fear!
For this fair Science spreads her light afar,
And fills the bright urn of ner eastern star.
The liberal power in no sequester'd cells,
No moonshine-courts of dreaming schoolmen
dwells;
Distinguish'd far her lofty temple stands,
Where the tall mountain looks o'er distant
lands,
All round her throne the graceful arts appear,
That boast the empire of the eye or ear.
See favour'd first, and nearest to the throne,
By the rapt mien of musing Silence known,
Fled from herself, the Pow'r of Numbers plac'd
Her wild thoughts watch'd by Harmony and
Taste.
There (but at distance never meant to vie), The full-form'd image glancing on her eye, See lively Painting! on her various face, Quick gliding forms a moment find a place; She looks, she acts the character she gives, And a new feature in each feature lives.
See Attic ease in Sculpture's graceful air, Half loose her robe, and half unbound her hair;
To life, to life, she smiling seems to call,
And down her fair hands negligently fall.
Last, but not meanest, of the glorious choir,
See Music, list'ning to an angel's lyre.
Simplicity, their beauteous handmaid, drest
By Nature, bears a field-flower on her breast.
O Arts divine! O magic Powers that move
The springs of truth, enlarging truth and love!
Lost in their charms each mean attachment
ends,
And Taste and Knowledge thus are Virtue's friends.
Thus nature deigns to sympathise with art, And leads the moral beauty to the heart: There, only there, that strong attraction lies, Which makes the soul, and bids her graces rise, Lives in those powers of harmony that bind Congenial hearts, and stretch from mind to
Glow'd in that warmth, that social kindness gave,
Which once-the rest is silence and the grave.
O tears, that warm from wounded friendship
flow!
O thoughts, that wake to monuments of woe!
Reflection keen, that points the painful dart;
Mem'ry, that speeds its passage to the heart;
Sad monitors, your cruel power suspend,
And hide, for ever hide, the buried friend:
-In vain-confest I see my Craufurd stand,
And the pen falls-falls from my trembling
hand;
E'en death's dim shadow seeks to hide, in vain,
That lib'ral aspect, and that smile humane;
E'en Death's dim shadow wears a languid
light,
And his eye beams through everlasting night.
Till the last sigh of Genius shall expire,
His keen eye faded, and extinct his fire,
Till time, in league with Envy and with Death,
Blast the skill'd hand, and stop the tuneful
breath,
My Craufurd still shall claim the mournful
song,
So long remember'd and bewail'd so long.
§ 13. The Universal Prayer. POPE.
Deo Opt. Max.
FATHER of All! in ev'ry age,
In ev'ry clime, ador'd,
By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!
Thou great First Cause, least understood,
Who all my sense confin'd
To know but this, that Thou art good,
And that myself am blind.
Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And, binding nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will.
What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This teach me more than hell to shun,
That more than heav'n pursue.
What blessings thy free bounty gives
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives,
T' enjoy is to obey.
Yet not to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think Thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round.
Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foe.
If I am right, thy grace impart,
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, oh teach my heart
To find that better way.
Save me alike from foolish pride,
Or impious discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has deny'd
Or aught thy goodness lent.
Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.
Mean tho' I am, not wholly so,
Since quicken'd by thy breath
lead me wheresoe'er I go,
Thro' this day's life, or death.
This day, be bread and peace my lot:
All else beneath the sun,
Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not;
And let thy will be done.
To Thee, whose temple is all space,
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies!
One chorus let all Being raise!
All Nature's incense rise!
14. Messiah, a Sacred Eclogue. POPE.
YE Nymphs of Solyma! begin the song;
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus and the Aonian maids,
Delight no more.-O Thou my voice inspire,
Who touch'd Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire!
Rapt into future times, the bard begun :—
A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a Son!
From Jesse's root behold a branch arise,
Whose sacred flow'r with fragrance fills the
skies;
Th' ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move;
And on its top descends the mystic Dove.
Ye heav'ns! from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly show'r!
The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid,
From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall
fail,
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;
Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,
And white-rob'd Innocence from Heav'n de-
scend.
Swift fly the years, and rise th' expected morn!
Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!
See Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing spring:
See lofty Lebanon his head advance,
See nodding forests on the mountains dance;
See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise,
And Carmel's flow'ry top perfumes the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears!
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply;
The rocks proclaim th' approaching Deity.
Lo, earth receives him from the bending skies!
Sink down, ye mountains, and, ye valleys, rise!
With heads declin'd, ye cedars, homage pay;
Be smooth, ye rocks; ye rapid floods, give way!
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards fore-
told;
Hear him, ye deaf! and, all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day:
"Tis he th' obstructed paths of sound shall
clear,
And bid new music charm th' unfolding ear;
The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch
forego,
And leap exulting, like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall
hear:
From ev'ry face he wipes off ev'ry tear.
In adamantine chains shall death be bound,
And hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound.
As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pasture, and the purest air,
Explores the lost, the wand'ring sheep di-
rects,
By day o'ersees them, and by night protects;
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,
Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms;
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promis'd Father of the future age.
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,
Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover'd o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a plough-share end.
Then palaces shall rise: the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-liv'd sire begun :
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
And the same hand that sow'd shall reap the
field.
The swain in barren deserts, with surprise,
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods,
Waste sandy valleys, once perplex'd with
thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn :
To leafless shrubs the flow'ring palms succeed,
And od'rous myrtle to the noisome weed.
The lambs with wolves shall
graze the verdant
mead,
And boys in flowr'y bands the tiger lead:
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleas'd the green lustre of their scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently
play.
Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy tow'ry head, and lift thy eyes;
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn;
See future sons and daughters, yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on ev'ry side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barb'rous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;
See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate
kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabean springs!
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See heav'n its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day.
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor ev'ning Cynthia fill her silver horn,
But lost, dissolv'd in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze,
O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall
shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!
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