Creative of the Poet, every power
Exalting to an ecstacy of foul.
And thou, my youthful muse's early friend,
In whom the human graces all unite :
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart;
Genius, and wisdom; the gay social sense,
By decency chastis'd ; goodness and wit,
In seldom-meeting harmony combin'd;
Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal,
For Britain's glory, Liberty, and Man:
O DODINGTON ! attend my rural song,
Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line,
And teach me to deserve thy just applause.
With what an awful world-revolving power,
Were first th' unwieldy planets launch'd along
Th' illimitable void ! Thus to remain,
Amid the flux of many thousand years,
35
That oft has swept the toiling race of men,
And all their labour'd monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless, in their course;
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day,
And of the seasons ever stealing round,
40 Minutely faithful : Such TH’ALL-PERFECT HAND; That pois'd, impels, and rules the steady whole.
When now no more th' alternate Twins are fir'd, And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,
Short
Short is the doubtful empire of the night; 45
And soon, observant of approaching day,
The meek-ey'd Morn appears, Mother of dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east:
Til far o'er ether spreads the widening glow;
And, from before the lustre of her face,
50
White break the clouds away. With quicken’d step,
Brown Night retires : Young Day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain's mifly top
Swell on the light, and brighten with the dawn. 55
Blue thro' the dusk, the smoaking currents shine ;
And from the bladed field the fearful liare
Limps, aukward : while along the foreft-glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes,
The native voice of undissembled joy ;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
Rous'd by the cock, the soon-clad Mepherd leaves
His mofly cottage, where with Peace he dwells ;
And from the crouded fold, in order, drives
His flock, to taste the verdure of the inorn.
FALSELY luxurious, will not Man awake;
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,
To meditation due and sacred song ?
For is there aught in fleep can charın the wife?
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life?
Total extinction of th’ enlightened soul !
Or else to feverith vanity alive,
Wildered, and tossing thro’ distemper'd dreams ?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain,
Longer than Nature craves ; when every Muse
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly-devious morning-walk?
But yonder comes the powerful King of Day,
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow
Illum'd with Auid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo ! now apparent all,
85
Allant the dew-bright earth, and colour'd air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad;
And sheds the shining day, that burnish'd plays
Onrocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams,
High-gleaming from afar. Prime chearer Light ! 90
Of all material beings first, and best !
Emux divine! Nature's resplendent robe !
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun !
Soul of surrounding worlds ! in whom beft feen
95 Shines out thy Maker! may I fing of thee?
'Tis by thy fecret, strong, attractive force, As with a chain indissoluble bound,
Thy System rolls entire : from the far bourne
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round
Of thirty years ; to Mercury, whose disk
Can scarce be caught by philofophic eye,
Loft in the near effulgence of thy blaze.
INFORMER of the planetary train ! Without whose quickening glance their cumbrcus orbe Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead,
106 And not as now the green abodes of life; How many forms of being wait on thee ! Inhaling fpirit; from th' unfetter'd mind, By thee sublim'd, down to the daily race, The mixing myriads of thy setting beam..
The vegetable world is also thine, Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede That waits thy throne, as thro' thy vast domain, Annual, along the bright ecliptic-road, 115 In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime. Mean-time th' expecting nations, circled gay With all the various tribes of foodful earth, Implore thy bounty, or fend grateful up
119 A common hymn: while, round thy bèaming car, High-seen, the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance Harmonious knit, the rosy-finger'd Hours, The Zephyrs floating loose, the timely Rains, Of bloom ethereal the light-footed Dews, And softened into joy the surly Starms,
125 These,
· Thefe, in fuccelive turn, with lavish hand,
Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower,
Herbs, flowers, and fruits ; till, kindling at thy touch,
From land to land is fufh'd the vernal year.
Nor to the surface of enliven'd earth, 130
Graceful with hills and dales, and leafy woods,
Her liberal tresses, is thy force confin’d :
But, to the boweld cavern darting deep,
The mineral kinds confess thy mighty power.
Effulgent, hence the veiny marble shines ;
135
Hence Labour draws his tools ; hence burnish'd War
Gleams on the day; the nobler works of Peace
Hence blefs mankind, and generous Commerce binds
The round of nations in a golden chain.
TA' unfruitful rock itself impregn'd by thee, 140
In dark retirement, forms the lucid stone.
The lively Diamond drinks thy purest rays,
Collected light, compact ; that polish'd bright,
And all its native luftre let abroad,
Dares, as it sparkles on the fair-one's breast,
145
With vain ambition emulate her eyes.
At thee the Ruby lights its deepening glow,
And with a waving radiance inward flames.
From thee the Saphire, folid ether, takes
Its hue cerulean; and, of evening tinct, 150
The purple-streaming Amethyst is thine.
With thy own smile the yellow Topaz burns.
Nor
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