Nor is the least a cheerful heart
That tastes those gifts with joy.
11. Through every period of my life,
Thy goodness I'll pursue;
And after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.
12. When nature fails, and day and night
Divide thy works no more,
My ever-grateful heart, O Lord!
Thy mercy shall adore.
13. Through all eternity, to thee
A joyful song I'll raise,
For O! eternity's too short
To utter all thy praise.
SECTION VIK
A man perishing in the snow; from whence reflections are raised on the miseries of life.
1. As thus the snows arise; and foul and fierce,
All winter drives along the darken'd air;
In his own loose revolving field, the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect shag the trackless plain;
Nor finds the river nor the forest hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on,
Froin bill to dale, still more and more astray;
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain attempt.
How sinks his soul! What black despair, what horror fills his heart! When, for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd His tufted ottage rising through he snow,
le meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the tra k and biest abode of man;
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And ev'ry tempest howling 'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
3. Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent, beyond the pow'r of frost!
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,
Smooth'd up with snow; and what is land, unknown,
What water, of the still unfrozen spring,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils. 4. These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots Through the wrung bosom of the dying man, His wife, his children, and his friends unseen. In vain for him th' officious wife prepares The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm; 5. In vain his little children, peeping out, In o the mingled storm, demand their sire, With tears of artless innocence. Alas! Nor wife, no children, more shall he behold; Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve The deadly winter seizes; shuts up sense; And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, Lays him along the snows a stiffen'd corse, Stretch'd out and bleaching in the northern blast. 6. Ah, little think the gay licentious proud,
Whom pleasure, pow'r, and affluence surround;
They who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel riot, waste;
Ah little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel this very moment death,
And all the sad variety of pain!
How many sink in the devouring flood,
Or more devouring flame! How many bleed, By shameful variance betwixt man and nian! 7. How many pine in want and dungeon glooms, Shut from the common air, and common use Of their own limbs! How many drink the cup Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread Of misery! Sore pierc'd by wintry winds, How many shrink into the sordid hut Of cheerless poverty! How many shake With all the fiercer tortures of the mind, Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse! S. How many, rack'd with honest passions, droop In deep retir'd distress! How many stand Around the death-bed of their dearest friends, And point the parting anguish! Thought fond man Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills, That one incessant struggle render life, One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,
Vice in his high career would stand appall'd,
And heedless rambling impulse learn to think;
The conscious heart of charity would warın,
And her wide wish benevolence dilate;
The social tear would rise, the social sigh;
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Refining still, the social passions work.
SECTION VIII.
1. THESE are thy glorious works, parent of good,
Almighty, thine this universal frame,
Thus wond'rous fair; thyself how wond'rous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens
To us, invisible, or dimly seen
In these thy lower works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and pow'r divine.
2. Speak ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels; for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing; ye, in heav'n,
On earth, join all ye creatures to extol
Him first, Him last, Him midst, and without end.
3. Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn,
Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere,
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Thou son of this great world, both eye and soul,
Acknowledge him thy greater, sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon hast gain'd, and when thon fall'st.
4. Moon, that now meet'st the orient sun, now fly'st,
With the fix'd stars, fix'd in their orb that flies;
And ye five other wand'ring fires that move
In mystic dance, not without song, resound
His praise, who out of darkness call'd up light.
Air and ye elements, the eldest birth
Of nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix
And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great MAKER still new praise.
5. Ye mists and exhalations that now rise
From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
U
In honour of the world's great AUTHOR rise!
Whether to deck with clouds th' uncolour'd sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling show'rs,
Rising or falling still advance his praise.
6. His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,
With ev plant in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices, all ye living souls; ye birds
That singing, up to heav'ns gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.
7. Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep;
Witness if I be silent, morn or even,
To hill or vally, fountain or fresh shade
Made voral by my song, and taught his praise,
Hail, UNIVERSAL LORD! be bounteous still
To give us only good ; and if the night
Has gather'd aught of evil, or conceal'd,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.
CHAPTER VI.
PROMISCUOUS PIECES.
SECTION I.
Ode to content.
1.0 THOU, the nymph with placid eye!
O seldom found, yet ever nigh!
Receive my temp❜rate vow:
Not all the storms that shake the pole
Can e'er disturb thy halcyon soul,
And smooth unalter'd brow.
2. O come, in simplest vest array'd,
With all thy sober cheer display'd,
To bless my longing sight
Thy mien compos'd, thy even pace,
Thy meek regard, thy matron grace,
And chaste subdu'd delight.
3. No more by varying passions beat,
O gentle guide my pilgrim feet
To find thy hermit cell;
Where in some pure and equal sky,
Beneath thy soft indulgent eye,
The modest virtues dwell,
4. Simplicity in attic vest,
And innocence, with candid breast,
And clear undaunted eye;
And Hope, who points to distant years,
Fair op'ning thro' this vale of tears
A vista to the sky.
5. There Health, thro' whose calm bosom glide
The temp❜rate joys in even tide,
That rarely ebb or flow;
And Patience there, thy sister meek,
Presents her mild, unvarying cheek,
To meet the offer'd blow.
6. Her influence taught the Phrygian sage
A tyrant master's wanton rage,
With settled smiles to meet :
Inur'd to toil and bitter bread,
He bow'd his meek submitted head,
And kiss'd thy sainted feet.
7. But thou, O nymph, retir'd and coy!
In what brown hamlet dost thou joy
To tell thy tender tale?
The lowliest children of the ground,
Moss-rose and violet blossom round,
And lily of the vale.
8. O say what soft propitious hour
I best may choose to hail thy pow'r,
And court thy gentle sway?
When autumn, friendly to the muse,
Shall thy own modest tints diffuse,
And shed thy milder day?
9. When eve, her dewy star beneath,
Thy balmy spirit loves to breathe,
And ev'ry storm is laid ?
If such an hour was e'er thy choice,
Oft let me hear thy soothing voice,
Low whisp'ring through the shade. BARBAULD.
SECTION II.
The shepherd and the philosopher.
1. REMOTE from cities liv'd a swain,
Unvex'd with all the cares of gain;
His head was silver'd o'er with age,
And long experience made him sage;
In summer's heat and winter's cold,
He fed his flock and penn'd the fold;
His hours in cheerful labour flew,
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