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,

30 Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line,

And teach me to deserve thy just applause.

With what an awful world-revolving power

73

Were first the unwieldy planets launch’d along

The illimitable void! thus to remain,

Amid the flux of many thousand years,

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,

40 And of the Seasons ever stealing round,

Minutely faithful: such the All-perfect Hand

That pois’d, impels, and rules the steady whole.

When now no more the alternate Twins are fir’d,

And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,

Short is the doubtful empire of the night;

And soon, observant of approaching day,

The meek-ey’d morn appears, mother of dews,

At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east—

Till far o’er ether spreads the widening glow,

50 And, from before the lustre of her face,

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 misty top,

74

Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.

Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine;

And from the bladed field the fearful hare

75

Limps, awkward; while along the forest glade

The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze

60 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 shepherd leaves

His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells;

And from the crowded fold, in order, drives

His flock, to taste the verdure of the morn.

Falsely luxurious, will not man awake;

And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy

The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,

70 To meditation due and sacred song?

For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?

To lie in dead oblivion, losing half

The fleeting moments of too short a life;

Total extinction of the enlighten’d soul!

Or else to feverish vanity alive,

Wilder’d, and tossing through distemper’d dreams!

Who would in such a gloomy state remain

Longer than nature craves; when every muse

And every blooming pleasure wait without,

76

80 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 fluid gold, his near approach

Betoken glad. Lo! now apparent all,

Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colour’d air,

He looks in boundless majesty abroad;

And sheds the shining day, that burnish’d plays

On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams,

90 High-gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer, light!

Of all material beings first, and best!

Efflux 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 best seen

Shines out thy Maker! may I sing of thee?

’Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force,

As with a chain indissoluble bound,

Thy system rolls entire; from the far bourn

100 Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round

Of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk

77

Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,

Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.

Informer of the planetary train!

Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous orbs

Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead,

And not, as now, the green abodes of life—

How many forms of being wait on thee!

Inhaling spirit; from the unfetter’d mind,

110 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 through thy vast domain,

Annual, along the bright ecliptic-road,

In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime.

Meantime the expecting nations, circled gay

With all the various tribes of foodful earth,

Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up

120 A common hymn; while, round thy beaming car,

High-seen, the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance

Harmonious knit, the rosy-finger’d hours,

The zephyrs floating loose, the timely rains,

78

Of bloom ethereal the light-footed dews,

And soften’d into joy the surly storms.

These, in successive turn, with lavish hand,

Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower,

Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch,

From land to land is flush’d the vernal year.

130 Nor to the surface of enliven’d earth,

Graceful with hills and dales, and leafy woods,

Her liberal tresses, is thy force confin’d—

But, to the bowell’d cavern darting deep,

The mineral kinds confess thy mighty power.

Effulgent, hence the veiny marble shines;

Hence labour draws his tools; hence burnish’d war

Gleams on the day; the nobler works of peace

Hence bless mankind; and generous commerce binds

The round of nations in a golden chain.

140 The unfruitful rock itself, impregn’d by thee,

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 lustre let abroad,

Dares, as it sparkles on the fair-one’s breast,

79

With vain ambition emulate her eyes.

At thee the ruby lights its deepening glow,

And with a waving radiance inward flames.

From thee the sapphire, solid ether, takes

150 Its hue cerulean; and, of evening tinct,

The purple-streaming amethyst is thine.

With thy own smile the yellow topaz burns;

Nor deeper verdure dyes the robe of Spring,

When first she gives it to the southern gale,

Than the green emerald shows. But, all combin’d,

Thick through the whitening opal play thy beams;

Or, flying several from its surface, form

A trembling variance of revolving hues,

As the site varies in the gazer’s hand.

81

How shall I then attempt to sing of him,

Who, Light himself! in uncreated light

Invested deep, dwells awfully retir’d

From mortal eye, or angel’s purer ken;

Whose single smile has, from the first of time,

180 Fill’d, overflowing, all those lamps of heaven,

That beam for ever through the boundless sky:

But, should he hide his face, the astonish’d sun,

And all the extinguish’d stars, would loosening reel

Wide from their spheres, and chaos come again.

And yet was every faltering tongue of man,

Almighty Father! silent in thy praise,

Thy works themselves would raise a general voice;

Even in the depth of solitary woods,

By human foot untrod, proclaim thy power;

190 And to the quire celestial thee resound,

The eternal cause, support, and end of all!

To me be Nature’s volume broad-display’d;

And to peruse its all-instructing page,

Or, haply catching inspiration thence,

Some easy passage, raptur’d, to translate,

My sole delight; as through the falling glooms

82

Pensive I stray, or with the rising dawn

On fancy’s eagle-wing excursive soar.

Now, flaming up the heavens, the potent sun

200 Melts into limpid air the high-rais’d clouds,

And morning fogs, that hover’d round the hills

In party-colour’d bands; till wide unveil’d

The face of nature shines, from where earth seems,

Far-stretch’d around, to meet the bending sphere.

Half in a blush of clustering roses lost,

Dew-dropping coolness to the shade retires,

There, on the verdant turf or flowery bed,

By gelid founts and careless rills to muse;

While tyrant heat, dispreading through the sky,

210 With rapid sway, his burning influence darts

On man, and beast, and herb, and tepid stream.

Who can unpitying see the flowery race,

Shed by the morn, their new-flush’d bloom resign,

Before the parching beam? So fade the fair,

When fevers revel through their azure veins.

But one, the lofty follower of the sun,

Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves,

Drooping all night; and, when he warm returns,

83

Points her enamour’d bosom to his ray.

Wak’d by his warmer ray, the reptile young

Come wing’d abroad; by the light air upborne,

Lighter, and full of soul. From every chink,

And secret corner, where they slept away

The wintry storms—or rising from their tombs,

To higher life—by myriads, forth at once,

Swarming they pour; of all the varied hues

Their beauty-beaming parent can disclose.

Ten thousand forms! ten thousand different tribes!

250 People the blaze. To sunny waters some

By fatal instinct fly; where on the pool

They, sportive, wheel; or, sailing down the stream,

85

Are snatch’d immediate by the quick-ey’d trout,

Or darting salmon. Through the greenwood glade

Some love to stray; there lodg’d, amus’d, and fed,

In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make

The meads their choice, and visit every flower,

And every latent herb: for the sweet task,

To propagate their kinds, and where to wrap,

260 In what soft beds, their young yet undisclos’d,

Employs their tender care. Some to the house,

The fold, and dairy, hungry, bend their flight;

Sip round the pail, or taste the curdling cheese:

Oft, inadvertent, from the milky stream

They meet their fate; or, weltering in the bowl,

With powerless wings around them wrapt, expire.

But chief to heedless flies the window proves

A constant death; where, gloomily retir’d,

The villain spider lives, cunning and fierce,

270 Mixture abhorr’d! Amid a mangled heap

Of carcasses, in eager watch he sits,

O’erlooking all his waving snares around.

Near the dire cell the dreadless wanderer oft

Passes; as oft the ruffian shows his front.

86

The prey at last ensnar’d, he dreadful darts,

With rapid glide, along the leaning line;

And, fixing in the wretch his cruel fangs,

Strikes backward, grimly pleas’d: the fluttering wing,

And shriller sound, declare extreme distress,

280 And ask the helping hospitable hand.

Let no presuming impious railer tax

Creative Wisdom, as if aught was form’d

320 In vain, or not for admirable ends.

Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce

His works unwise, of which the smallest part

Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?

As if upon a full-proportion’d dome,

On swelling columns heav’d, the pride of art!

A critic fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads

An inch around, with blind presumption bold,

Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.

And lives the man whose universal eye

330 Has swept at once the unbounded scheme of things,

89

Mark’d their dependence so, and firm accord,

As with unfaltering accent to conclude

That this availeth nought? Has any seen

The mighty chain of beings, lessening down

From Infinite Perfection to the brink

Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss!

From which astonish’d thought, recoiling, turns?

Till then, alone let zealous praise ascend,

And hymns of holy wonder, to that Power,

340 Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds,

As on our smiling eyes his servant-sun.

Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways,

Upward and downward, thwarting and convolv’d,

The quivering nations sport; till, tempest-wing’d,

Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day.

Even so luxurious men, unheeding, pass

An idle summer-life in fortune’s shine,

A season’s glitter! thus they flutter on

From toy to toy, from vanity to vice;

350 Till, blown away by death, oblivion comes

Behind, and strikes them from the book of life.

Or rushing thence, in one diffusive band,

They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog

Compell’d, to where the mazy-running brook

Forms a deep pool; this bank abrupt and high,

And that, fair-spreading in a pebbled shore.

Urg’d to the giddy brink, much is the toil,

The clamour much, of men, and boys, and dogs,

Ere the soft fearful people to the flood

Commit their woolly sides. And oft the swain,

380 On some impatient seizing, hurls them in:

Embolden’d then, nor hesitating more,

Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing wave,

And panting labour to the farther shore.

Repeated this, till deep the well-wash’d fleece

92

Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt

The trout is banish’d by the sordid stream,

Heavy and dripping, to the breezy brow

Slow-move the harmless race; where, as they spread

Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray,

390 Inly disturb’d, and wondering what this wild

Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints

The country fill—and, toss’d from rock to rock,

Incessant bleatings run around the hills.

At last, of snowy white, the gather’d flocks

Are in the wattled pen innumerous press’d,

Head above head; and rang’d in lusty rows

The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears.

The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores,

With all her gay-drest maids attending round.

400 One, chief, in gracious dignity enthron’d,

Shines o’er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays

Her smiles, sweet-beaming, on her shepherd-king;

While the glad circle round them yield their souls

To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.

’Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the sun

Darts on the head direct his forceful rays.

O’er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye

Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all,

From pole to pole, is undistinguish’d blaze.

In vain the sight, dejected to the ground,

Stoops for relief; thence hot ascending steams

And keen reflection pain. Deep to the root

440 Of vegetation parch’d, the cleaving fields

And slippery lawn an arid hue disclose,

Blast fancy’s blooms, and wither even the soul.

95

Echo no more returns the cheerful sound

Of sharpening scythe: the mower, sinking, heaps

O’er him the humid hay, with flowers perfum’d;

And scarce a chirping grasshopper is heard

Through the dumb mead. Distressful nature pants.

The very streams look languid from afar;

Or, through the unshelter’d glade, impatient, seem

450 To hurl into the covert of the grove.

All-conquering heat, oh intermit thy wrath!

And on my throbbing temples potent thus

Beam not so fierce! Incessant still you flow,

And still another fervent flood succeeds,

Pour’d on the head profuse. In vain I sigh,

And restless turn, and look around for night:

Night is far off; and hotter hours approach.

Thrice-happy he! who on the sunless side

Of a romantic mountain, forest-crown’d,

460 Beneath the whole collected shade reclines;

Or in the gelid caverns, woodbine-wrought,

And fresh bedew’d with ever-spouting streams,

Sits coolly calm, while all the world without,

Unsatisfied and sick, tosses in noon.

96

Emblem instructive of the virtuous man,

Who keeps his temper’d mind serene, and pure,

And every passion aptly harmonis’d,

Amid a jarring world with vice inflam’d.

Welcome, ye shades! ye bowery thickets, hail!

470 Ye lofty pines! ye venerable oaks!

Ye ashes wild, resounding o’er the steep!

Delicious is your shelter to the soul,

As to the hunted hart the sallying spring,

Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides

Laves, as he floats along the herbag’d brink.

Cool, through the nerves, your pleasing comfort glides;

The heart beats glad; the fresh-expanded eye

And ear resume their watch; the sinews knit;

And life shoots swift through all the lighten’d limbs.

98

Light fly his slumbers, if perchance a flight

Of angry gadflies fasten on the herd;

500 That startling scatters from the shallow brook,

In search of lavish stream. Tossing the foam,

They scorn the keeper’s voice, and scour the plain

Through all the bright severity of noon;

While, from their labouring breasts, a hollow moan

Proceeding, runs low-bellowing round the hills.

Oft in this season too the horse, provok’d,

While his big sinews full of spirits swell,

Trembling with vigour, in the heat of blood,

Springs the high fence; and, o’er the field effus’d,

510 Darts on the gloomy flood, with steadfast eye,

And heart estrang’d to fear: his nervous chest,

Luxuriant and erect, the seat of strength!

Bears down the opposing stream; quenchless his thirst,

He takes the river at redoubled draughts;

And with wide nostrils, snorting, skims the wave.

Still let me pierce into the midnight depth

Of yonder grove, of wildest, largest growth;

That, forming high in air a woodland quire,

Nods o’er the mount beneath. At every step,

99

520 Solemn and slow, the shadows blacker fall,

And all is awful listening gloom around.

These are the haunts of meditation, these

The scenes where ancient bards the inspiring breath,

Ecstatic, felt; and, from this world retir’d,

Convers’d with angels, and immortal forms,

On gracious errands bent: to save the fall

Of virtue struggling on the brink of vice;

In waking whispers, and repeated dreams,

To hint pure thought, and warn the favour’d soul

530 For future trials fated to prepare;

To prompt the poet, who devoted gives

His muse to better themes; to soothe the pangs

Of dying worth, and from the patriot’s breast

(Backward to mingle in detested war,

But foremost when engag’d) to turn the death;

And numberless such offices of love,

Daily and nightly, zealous to perform.

Shook sudden from the bosom of the sky,

A thousand shapes or glide athwart the dusk,

540 Or stalk majestic on. Deep-rous’d, I feel

A sacred terror, a severe delight,

100

Creep through my mortal frame; and thus, methinks,

A voice, than human more, the abstracted ear

Of fancy strikes: “Be not of us afraid,

Poor kindred man! thy fellow-creatures, we

From the same Parent-Power our beings drew—

The same our Lord, and laws, and great pursuit.

Once some of us, like thee, through stormy life

Toil’d tempest-beaten, ere we could attain

550 This holy calm, this harmony of mind,

Where purity and peace immingle charms.

Thus up the mount, in airy vision rapt,

I stray, regardless whither; till the sound

Of a near fall of water every sense

Wakes from the charm of thought: swift-shrinking back,

I check my steps, and view the broken scene.

590 Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood

Rolls fair, and placid; where collected all,

In one impetuous torrent, down the steep

It thundering shoots, and shakes the country round.

At first, an azure sheet, it rushes broad;

Then whitening by degrees as prone it falls,

And from the loud-resounding rocks below

Dash’d in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft

A hoary mist, and forms a ceaseless shower.

Nor can the tortur’d wave here find repose:

600 But, raging still amid the shaggy rocks,

Now flashes o’er the scatter’d fragments, now

103

Aslant the hollow’d channel rapid darts;

And falling fast from gradual slope to slope,

With wild infracted course, and lessened roar,

It gains a safer bed, and steals, at last,

Along the mazes of the quiet vale.

Invited from the cliff, to whose dark brow

He clings, the steep-ascending eagle soars,

With upward pinions, through the flood of day;

610 And, giving full his bosom to the blaze,

Gains on the sun; while all the tuneful race,

Smit by afflictive noon, disorder’d droop,

Deep in the thicket; or, from bower to bower

Responsive, force an interrupted strain.

The stockdove only through the forest coos,

Mournfully hoarse; oft ceasing from his plaint,

Short interval of weary woe! again

The sad idea of his murder’d mate,

Struck from his side by savage fowler’s guile,

620 Across his fancy comes; and then resounds

A louder song of sorrow through the grove.

Beside the dewy border let me sit,

All in the freshness of the humid air:

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There on that hollow’d rock, grotesque and wild,

An ample chair moss-lin’d, and over head

By flowering umbrage shaded; where the bee

Strays diligent, and with the extracted balm

Of fragrant woodbine loads his little thigh.

Now, while I taste the sweetness of the shade,

630 While nature lies around deep-lull’d in noon,

Now come, bold fancy, spread a daring flight,

And view the wonders of the torrid zone

105

Climes unrelenting! with whose rage compar’d,

Yon blaze is feeble, and yon skies are cool.

See, how at once the bright-effulgent sun,

Rising direct, swift chases from the sky

The short liv’d twilight; and with ardent blaze

Looks gaily fierce o’er all the dazzling air:

He mounts his throne; but kind before him sends,

640 Issuing from out the portals of the morn,

The general breeze2, to mitigate his fire,

And breathe refreshment on a fainting world.

Great are the scenes, with dreadful beauty crown’d

And barbarous wealth, that see, each circling year,

Returning suns and double seasons3 pass:

Rocks rich in gems, and mountains big with mines,

That on the high equator ridgy rise,

Whence many a bursting stream auriferous plays;

Majestic woods, of every vigorous green,

650 Stage above stage, high-waving o’er the hills,

Or to the far horizon wide-diffus’d,

A boundless deep immensity of shade.

Here lofty trees, to ancient song unknown,

The noble sons of potent heat and floods

106

Prone-rushing from the clouds, rear high to heaven

Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw

Meridian gloom. Here, in eternal prime,

Unnumber’d fruits, of keen delicious taste

And vital spirit, drink amid the cliffs,

660 And burning sands that bank the shrubby vales,

Redoubled day; yet in their rugged coats

A friendly juice to cool its rage contain.

Bear me, Pomona! to thy citron groves;

To where the lemon and the piercing lime,

With the deep orange, glowing through the green,

Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclin’d

Beneath the spreading tamarind, that shakes,

Fann’d by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit.

Deep in the night the massy locust sheds,

670 Quench my hot limbs; or lead me through the maze,

Embowering endless, of the Indian fig;

Or thrown at gayer ease, on some fair brow,

Let me behold, by breezy murmurs cool’d,

Broad o’er my head the verdant cedar wave,

And high palmettos lift their graceful shade.

Oh! stretch’d amid these orchards of the sun,

107

Give me to drain the cocoa’s milky bowl,

And from the palm to draw its freshening wine;

More bounteous far than all the frantic juice

680 Which Bacchus pours. Nor, on its slender twigs

Low-bending, be the full pomegranate scorn’d;

Nor, creeping through the woods, the gelid race

Of berries. Oft in humble station dwells

Unboastful worth, above fastidious pomp.

Witness, thou best ananas, thou the pride

Of vegetable life, beyond whate’er

The poets imag’d in the golden age:

Quick let me strip thee of thy tufty coat,

Spread thy ambrosial stores, and feast with Jove!

690 From these the prospect varies. Plains immense

Lie stretch’d below, interminable meads,

And vast savannas, where the wandering eye,

Unfix’d, is in a verdant ocean lost.

Another Flora there, of bolder hues

And richer sweets, beyond our garden’s pride,

Plays o’er the fields, and showers with sudden hand

Exuberant Spring; for oft these valleys shift

Their green-embroider’d robe to fiery brown,

108

And swift to green again, as scorching suns,

700 Or streaming dews and torrent rains, prevail.

Along these lonely regions, where, retir’d

From little scenes of art, great Nature dwells

In awful solitude, and nought is seen

But the wild herds that own no master’s stall,

Prodigious rivers roll their fattening seas;

On whose luxuriant herbage, half-conceal’d,

Like a fall’n cedar, far diffus’d his train,

Cas’d in green scales, the crocodile extends.

The flood disparts: behold! in plaited mail,

710 Behemoth4 rears his head. Glanc’d from his side,

The darted steel in idle shivers flies:

He fearless walks the plain, or seeks the hills;

Where, as he crops his varied fare, the herds,

In widening circle round, forget their food,

And at the harmless stranger wondering gaze.

Peaceful, beneath primeval trees that cast

Their ample shade o’er Niger’s yellow stream,

And where the Ganges rolls his sacred wave,

Or ’mid the central depth of blackening woods

720 High-rais’d in solemn theatre around,

109

Leans the huge elephant; wisest of brutes!

Oh truly wise! with gentle might endow’d,

Though powerful, not destructive. Here he sees

Revolving ages sweep the changeful earth,

And empires rise and fall; regardless he

Of what the never-resting race of men

Project: thrice happy! could he ’scape their guile,

Who mine, from cruel avarice, his steps;

Or with his towery grandeur swell their state,

730 The pride of kings! or else his strength pervert,

And bid him rage amid the mortal fray,

Astonish’d at the madness of mankind.

Wide o’er the winding umbrage of the floods,

Like vivid blossoms glowing from afar,

Thick-swarm the brighter birds. For Nature’s hand,

That with a sportive vanity has deck’d

The plumy nations, there her gayest hues

Profusely pours. But, if she bids them shine,

Array’d in all the beauteous beams of day,

740 Yet frugal still, she humbles them in song.5

Nor envy we the gaudy robes they lent

Proud Montezuma’s realm, whose legions cast

110

A boundless radiance waving on the sun,

While philomel is ours; while in our shades,

Through the soft silence of the listening night,

The sober-suited songstress trills her lay.

But come, my muse, the desert-barrier burst,

A wild expanse of lifeless sand and sky;

And, swifter than the toiling caravan,

750 Shoot o’er the vale of Sennaar, ardent climb

The Nubian mountains, and the secret bounds

Of jealous Abyssinia boldly pierce.

Thou art no ruffian, who beneath the mask

Of social commerce com’st to rob their wealth;

No holy fury thou, blaspheming Heaven,

With consecrated steel to stab their peace,

And through the land, yet red from civil wounds,

To spread the purple tyranny of Rome.

Thou, like the harmless bee, may’st freely range,

760 From mead to mead bright with exalted flowers,

From jasmine grove to grove; may’st wander gay,

Through palmy shades and aromatic woods,

That grace the plains, invest the peopled hills,

And up the more than Alpine mountains wave.

111

There on the breezy summit, spreading fair

For many a league; or on stupendous rocks,

That from the sun-redoubling valley lift,

Cool to the middle air, their lawny tops;

Where palaces, and fanes, and villas rise;

770 And gardens smile around, and cultur’d fields;

And fountains gush; and careless herds and flocks

Securely stray; a world within itself,

Disdaining all assault: there let me draw

Ethereal soul, there drink reviving gales,

Profusely breathing from the spicy groves,

And vales of fragrance; there at distance hear

The roaring floods, and cataracts, that sweep

From disembowell’d earth the virgin gold;

And o’er the varied landscape, restless, rove,

780 Fervent with life of every fairer kind.

A land of wonders! which the sun still eyes

With ray direct, as of the lovely realm

Enamour’d, and delighting there to dwell.

How chang’d the scene! In blazing height of noon,

The sun, oppress’d, is plung’d in thickest gloom.

Still horror reigns, a dreary twilight round,

112

Of struggling night and day malignant mix’d.

For to the hot equator crowding fast,

Where, highly rarefied, the yielding air

790 Admits their stream, incessant vapours roll,

Amazing clouds on clouds continual heap’d;

Or whirl’d tempestuous by the gusty wind,

Or silent borne along, heavy and slow,

With the big stores of steaming oceans charg’d.

Meantime, amid these upper seas, condens’d

Around the cold aërial mountain’s brow,

And by conflicting winds together dash’d,

The thunder holds his black tremendous throne;

From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage;

800 Till, in the furious elemental war

Dissolv’d, the whole precipitated mass

Unbroken floods and solid torrents pours.

Nor less thy world, Columbus, drinks, refresh’d,

The lavish moisture of the melting year.

Wide o’er his isles, the branching Orinoque

Rolls a brown deluge; and the native drives

To dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees—

At once his dome, his robe, his food, and arms.

Swell’d by a thousand streams, impetuous hurl’d

From all the roaring Andes, huge descends

840 The mighty Orellana.7 Scarce the muse

Dares stretch her wing o’er this enormous mass

Of rushing water; scarce she dares attempt

The sea-like Plata; to whose dread expanse,

115

Continuous depth, and wondrous length of course,

Our floods are rills. With unabated force,

In silent dignity they sweep along;

And traverse realms unknown, and blooming wilds,

And fruitful deserts—worlds of solitude,

Where the sun smiles and Seasons teem in vain,

850 Unseen and unenjoy’d. Forsaking these,

O’er peopled plains they fair-diffusive flow,

And many a nation feed, and circle safe,

In their soft bosom, many a happy isle;

The seat of blameless Pan, yet undisturb’d

By Christian crimes and Europe’s cruel sons.

Thus pouring on they proudly seek the deep,

Whose vanquish’d tide, recoiling from the shock,

Yields to this liquid weight of half the globe;

And ocean trembles for his green domain.

860 But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth,

This gay profusion of luxurious bliss,

This pomp of Nature? what their balmy meads,

Their powerful herbs, and Ceres void of pain?

By vagrant birds dispers’d, and wafting winds,

What their unplanted fruits? what the cool draughts,

116

The ambrosial food, rich gums, and spicy health,

Their forests yield? their toiling insects what,

Their silky pride, and vegetable robes?

Ah! what avail their fatal treasures, hid

870 Deep in the bowels of the pitying earth,

Golconda’s gems, and sad Potosi’s mines?

Where dwelt the gentlest children of the sun!

What all that Afric’s golden rivers roll,

Her odorous woods, and shining ivory stores?

Ill-fated race! the softening arts of peace,

Whate’er the humanising muses teach;

The godlike wisdom of the temper’d breast;

Progressive truth, the patient force of thought;

Investigation calm, whose silent powers

880 Command the world; the light that leads to Heaven;

Kind equal rule, the government of laws,

And all-protecting freedom, which alone

Sustains the name and dignity of man:

These are not theirs. The parent sun himself

Seems o’er this world of slaves to tyrannise;

And, with oppressive ray, the roseate bloom

Of beauty blasting, gives the gloomy hue,

117

And feature gross; or worse, to ruthless deeds,

Mad jealousy, blind rage, and fell revenge,

890 Their fervid spirit fires. Love dwells not there;

The soft regards, the tenderness of life,

The heart-shed tear, the ineffable delight

Of sweet humanity: these court the beam

Of milder climes; in selfish fierce desire,

And the wild fury of voluptuous sense,

There lost. The very brute creation there

This rage partakes, and burns with horrid fire.

Lo! the green serpent, from his dark abode,

Which even imagination fears to tread,

900 At noon forth-issuing, gathers up his train

In orbs immense, then, darting out anew,

Seeks the refreshing fount, by which diffus’d

He throws his folds; and while, with threatening tongue

And deathful jaws erect, the monster curls

His flaming crest, all other thirst appall’d,

Or shivering flies, or check’d at distance stands,

Nor dares approach. But still more direful he,

The small close-lurking minister of fate,

Whose high-concocted venom through the veins

118

910 A rapid lightning darts, arresting swift

The vital current. Form’d to humble man,

This child of vengeful Nature! There, sublim’d

To fearless lust of blood, the savage race

Roam, licens’d by the shading hour of guilt,

And foul misdeed, when the pure day has shut

His sacred eye. The tiger, darting fierce,

Impetuous on the prey his glance has doom’d;

The lively-shining leopard, speckled o’er

With many a spot, the beauty of the waste;

920 And, scorning all the taming arts of man,

The keen hyena, fellest of the fell:

These, rushing from the inhospitable woods

Of Mauritania, or the tufted isles

That verdant rise amid the Libyan wild,

Innumerous glare around their shaggy king,

Majestic, stalking o’er the printed sand;

Nor stop the terrors of these regions here.

960 Commission’d demons oft, angels of wrath,

Let loose the raging elements. Breath’d hot

From all the boundless furnace of the sky,

And the wide glittering waste of burning sand,

A suffocating wind the pilgrim smites

With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil,

121

Son of the desert! even the camel feels,

Shot through his wither’d heart, the fiery blast.

Or from the black-red ether, bursting broad,

Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands,

970 Commov’d around, in gathering eddies play;

Nearer and nearer still they darkening come;

Till, with the general all-involving storm

Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arise;

And by their noon day fount dejected thrown,

Or sunk at night in sad disastrous sleep,

Beneath descending hills, the caravan

Is buried deep. In Cairo’s crowded streets

The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain,

And Mecca saddens at the long delay.

980 But chief at sea, whose every flexile wave

Obeys the blast, the aërial tumult swells.

In the dread ocean, undulating wide,

Beneath the radiant line that girts the globe,

The circling typhon8, whirl’d from point to point,

Exhausting all the rage of all the sky,

And dire ecnephias8, reign. Amid the heavens,

Falsely serene, deep in a cloudy speck9

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Compress’d, the mighty tempest brooding dwells:

Of no regard save to the skilful eye,

990 Fiery and foul, the small prognostic hangs

Aloft, or on the promontory’s brow

Musters its force. A faint deceitful calm,

A fluttering gale, the demon sends before,

To tempt the spreading sail. Then down at once,

Precipitant, descends a mingled mass

Of roaring winds, and flame, and rushing floods.

In wild amazement fix’d the sailor stands.

Art is too slow. By rapid fate oppress’d,

His broad-wing’d vessel drinks the whelming tide,

1000 Hid in the bosom of the black abyss.

With such mad seas the daring Gama10 fought,

For many a day, and many a dreadful night,

Incessant, labouring round the stormy cape;

By bold ambition led, and bolder thirst

Of gold. For then, from ancient gloom, emerg’d

The rising world of trade: the genius, then,

Of navigation, that in hopeless sloth

Had slumber’d on the vast Atlantic deep

For idle ages, starting, heard at last

123

1010 The Lusitanian prince11; who, heaven-inspir’d,

To love of useful glory rous’d mankind,

And in unbounded commerce mix’d the world.

Increasing still the terrors of these storms,

His jaws horrific arm’d with threefold fate,

Here dwells the direful shark. Lur’d by the scent

Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death,

Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood,

Swift as the gale can bear the ship along;

And from the partners of that cruel trade

1020 Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons,

Demands his share of prey—demands themselves.

The stormy fates descend: one death involves

Tyrants and slaves; when straight, their mangled limbs

Crashing at once, he dyes the purple seas

With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.

When o’er this world, by equinoctial rains

Flooded immense, looks out the joyless sun,

And draws the copious steam; from swampy fens,

Where putrefaction into life ferments,

1030 And breathes destructive myriads; or from woods,

Impenetrable shades, recesses foul,

124

In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapt,

Whose gloomy horrors yet no desperate foot

Has ever dar’d to pierce—then, wasteful, forth

Walks the dire power of pestilent disease.

A thousand hideous fiends her course attend,

Sick nature blasting, and to heartless woe,

And feeble desolation, casting down

The towering hopes and all the pride of man.

1040 Such as, of late, at Cartagena quench’d

The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, saw

The miserable scene; you, pitying, saw

To infant weakness sunk the warrior’s arm;

Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form,

The lip pale-quivering, and the beamless eye

No more with ardour bright; you heard the groans

Of agonising ships, from shore to shore;

Heard, nightly plung’d amid the sullen waves,

The frequent corse—while on each other fix’d,

1050 In sad presage, the blank assistants seem’d,

Silent, to ask, whom fate would next demand.

What need I mention those inclement skies

Where, frequent o’er the sickening city, plague,

125

The fiercest child of Nemesis divine,

Descends? From Ethiopia’s poison’d woods,

From stifled Cairo’s filth, and fetid fields

With locust-armies putrefying heap’d,

This great destroyer sprung.12 Her awful rage

The brutes escape. Man is her destin’d prey,

1060 Intemperate man! and o’er his guilty domes

She draws a close incumbent cloud of death;

Uninterrupted by the living winds,

Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze; and stain’d

With many a mixture by the sun, suffus’d,

Of angry aspect. Princely wisdom, then,

Dejects his watchful eye; and from the hand

Of feeble justice, ineffectual, drop

The sword and balance: mute the voice of joy,

And hush’d the clamour of the busy world.

Much yet remains unsung: the rage intense

Of brazen-vaulted skies, of iron fields,

Where drought and famine starve the blasted year;

Fir’d by the torch of noon to tenfold rage,

The infuriate hill that shoots the pillar’d flame;

And, rous’d within the subterranean world,

The expanding earthquake, that resistless shakes

Aspiring cities from their solid base,

1100 And buries mountains in the flaming gulf.

But ’tis enough; return, my vagrant muse;

A nearer scene of horror calls thee home.

Behold, slow-settling o’er the lurid grove,

Unusual darkness broods; and growing gains

The full possession of the sky, surcharg’d

With wrathful vapour, from the secret beds,

Where sleep the mineral generations, drawn.

Thence nitre, sulphur, and the fiery spume

128

Of fat bitumen, steaming on the day,

1110 With various-tinctur’d trains of latent flame,

Pollute the sky, and in yon baleful cloud,

A reddening gloom, a magazine of fate,

Ferment; till, by the touch ethereal rous’d,

The dash of clouds, or irritating war

Of fighting winds, while all is calm below,

They furious spring. A boding silence reigns,

Dread through the dun expanse; save the dull sound

That from the mountain, previous to the storm,

Rolls o’er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,

1120 And shakes the forest leaf without a breath:

Prone, to the lowest vale, the aërial tribes

Descend: the tempest-loving raven scarce

Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze

The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens

Cast a deploring eye; by man forsook,

Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,

Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave.

’Tis listening fear, and dumb amazement all:

When to the startled eye the sudden glance

1130 Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud;

129

And following slower, in explosion vast,

The thunder raises his tremendous voice.

At first, heard solemn o’er the verge of heaven,

The tempest growls; but as it nearer comes,

And rolls its awful burden on the wind,

The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more

The noise astounds—till over head a sheet

Of livid flame discloses wide, then shuts

And opens wider, shuts and opens still

1140 Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze.

Follows the loosen’d aggravated roar,

Enlarging, deepening, mingling, peal on peal

Crush’d horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.

131

Guilt hears appall’d, with deeply troubled thought;

1170 And yet not always on the guilty head

Descends the fated flash. Young Celadon

And his Amelia were a matchless pair;

With equal virtue form’d, and equal grace,

The same, distinguish’d by their sex alone:

Hers the mild lustre of the blooming morn,

And his the radiance of the risen day.

They lov’d: but such their guileless passion was,

As in the dawn of time inform’d the heart

Of innocence, and undissembling truth.

1180 ’Twas friendship heighten’d by the mutual wish,

The enchanting hope, and sympathetic glow,

Beam’d from the mutual eye. Devoting all

To love, each was to each a dearer self;

Supremely happy in the awaken’d power

Of giving joy. Alone, amid the shades,

Still in harmonious intercourse they liv’d

The rural day, and talk’d the flowing heart,

Or sigh’d and look’d unutterable things.

134

As from the face of heaven the shatter’d clouds

Tumultuous rove, the interminable sky

Sublimer swells, and o’er the world expands

A purer azure. Nature, from the storm,

Shines out afresh; and through the lighten’d air

A higher lustre and a clearer calm,

Diffusive, tremble; while, as if in sign

1230 Of danger past, a glittering robe of joy,

Set off abundant by the yellow ray,

Invests the fields, yet dropping from distress.

’Tis beauty all, and grateful song around,

Join’d to the low of kine, and numerous bleat

Of flocks thick-nibbling through the clover’d vale.

And shall the hymn be marr’d by thankless man,

Most-favour’d; who with voice articulate

Should lead the chorus of this lower world?

Shall he, so soon forgetful of the hand

1240 That hush’d the thunder, and serenes the sky,

Extinguish’d feel that spark the tempest wak’d,

That sense of powers exceeding far his own,

Ere yet his feeble heart has lost its fears?

Cheer’d by the milder beam, the sprightly youth

135

Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal depth

A sandy bottom shows. A while he stands

Gazing the inverted landscape, half-afraid

To meditate the blue profound below;

Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.

1250 His ebon tresses and his rosy cheek

Instant emerge; and through the obedient wave,

At each short breathing by his lip repell’d,

With arms and legs according well, he makes,

As humour leads, an easy-winding path;

While, from his polish’d sides, a dewy light

Effuses on the pleas’d spectators round.

This is the purest exercise of health,

The kind refresher of the summer heats;

Nor, when cold Winter keens the brightening flood,

1260 Would I weak-shivering linger on the brink.

Thus life redoubles; and is oft preserv’d,

By the bold swimmer, in the swift illapse

Of accident disastrous. Hence the limbs

Knit into force; and the same Roman arm

That rose victorious o’er the conquer’d earth,

First learn’d, while tender, to subdue the wave.

136

Even, from the body’s purity, the mind

Receives a secret sympathetic aid.

Close in the covert of an hazel copse,

1270 Where winded into pleasing solitudes

Runs out the rambling dale, young Damon sat;

Pensive, and pierc’d with love’s delightful pangs.

There to the stream that down the distant rocks

Hoarse-murmuring fell, and plaintive breeze that play’d

Among the bending willows, falsely he

Of Musidora’s cruelty complain’d.

She felt his flame; but deep within her breast,

In bashful coyness, or in maiden pride,

The soft return conceal’d—save when it stole

1280 In sidelong glances from her downcast eye,

Or from her swelling soul in stifled sighs.

Touch’d by the scene, no stranger to his vows,

He fram’d a melting lay, to try her heart;

And, if an infant passion struggled there,

To call that passion forth. Thrice-happy swain!

A lucky chance, that oft decides the fate

Of mighty monarchs, then decided thine.

For, lo! conducted by the laughing loves,

137

This cool retreat his Musidora sought:

1290 Warm in her cheek the sultry season glow’d;

And, rob’d in loose array, she came to bathe

Her fervent limbs in the refreshing stream.

What shall he do? In sweet confusion lost,

And dubious flutterings, he a while remain’d.

A pure ingenuous elegance of soul,

A delicate refinement known to few,

Perplex’d his breast, and urg’d him to retire;

But love forbade. Ye prudes in virtue, say,

Say, ye severest, what would you have done?

1300 Meantime, this fairer nymph than ever blest

Arcadian stream, with timid eye around

The banks surveying, stripp’d her beauteous limbs,

To taste the lucid coolness of the flood.

Ah! then, not Paris on the piny top

Of Ida panted stronger, when aside

The rival goddesses the veil divine

Cast unconfin’d, and gave him all their charms,

Than, Damon, thou; as from the snowy leg,

And slender foot, the inverted silk she drew;

1310 As the soft touch dissolv’d the virgin zone;

138

And, through the parting robe, the alternate breast,

With youth wild-throbbing, on thy lawless gaze

In full luxuriance rose. But, desperate youth,

How durst thou risk the soul-distracting view,

As from her naked limbs, of glowing white,

Harmonious swell’d by Nature’s finest hand,

In folds loose-floating fell the fainter lawn,

And fair-expos’d she stood—shrunk from herself,

With fancy blushing, at the doubtful breeze

1320 Alarm’d, and starting like the fearful fawn?

Then to the flood she rush’d: the parted flood

Its lovely guest with closing waves receiv’d;

And every beauty softening, every grace

Flushing anew, a mellow lustre shed—

As shines the lily through the crystal mild,

Or as the rose amid the morning dew,

Fresh from Aurora’s hand, more sweetly glows.

While thus she wanton’d, now beneath the wave

But ill-conceal’d, and now with streaming locks,

1330 That half-embrac’d her in a humid veil,

Rising again, the latent Damon drew

Such maddening draughts of beauty to the soul,

139

As for a while o’erwhelm’d his raptur’d thought

With luxury too daring. Check’d, at last,

By love’s respectful modesty, he deem’d

The theft profane, if aught profane to love

Can e’er be deem’d, and, struggling from the shade,

With headlong hurry fled; but first these lines,

Trac’d by his ready pencil, on the bank

1340 With trembling hand he threw: “Bathe on, my fair,

Yet unbeheld save by the sacred eye

Of faithful love: I go to guard thy haunt;

To keep from thy recess each vagrant foot,

And each licentious eye.” With wild surprise,

As if to marble struck, devoid of sense,

A stupid moment motionless she stood:

So stands the statue13 that enchants the world;

So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,

The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.

And on the spreading beech, that o’er the stream

Incumbent hung, she with the sylvan pen

Of rural lovers this confession carv’d,

Which soon her Damon kiss’d with weeping joy:

“Dear youth! sole judge of what these verses mean,

By fortune too much favour’d, but by love,

Alas! not favour’d less, be still as now

1370 Discreet; the time may come you need not fly.”

The sun has lost his rage: his downward orb

Shoots nothing now but animating warmth,

And vital lustre; that, with various ray,

Lights up the clouds, those beauteous robes of heaven,

Incessant roll’d into romantic shapes,

The dream of waking fancy! Broad below,

Cover’d with ripening fruits, and swelling fast

Into the perfect year, the pregnant earth

And all her tribes rejoice. Now the soft hour

1380 Of walking comes: for him who lonely loves

142

To seek the distant hills, and there converse

With Nature; there to harmonise his heart,

And in pathetic song to breathe around

The harmony to others. Social friends,

Attun’d to happy unison of soul—

To whose exalting eye a fairer world,

Of which the vulgar never had a glimpse,

Displays its charms—whose minds are richly fraught

With philosophic stores, superior light—

1390 And in whose breast, enthusiastic, burns

Virtue the sons of interest deem romance,

Now call’d abroad enjoy the falling day:

Now to the verdant portico of woods,

To Nature’s vast lyceum, forth they walk;

By that kind school where no proud master reigns,

The full free converse of the friendly heart,

Improving and improv’d. Now from the world,

Sacred to sweet retirement, lovers steal,

And pour their souls in transport, which the sire

1400 Of love approving hears, and calls it good.

Heavens! what a goodly prospect spreads around,

Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires,

1440 And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all

The stretching landscape into smoke decays!

Happy Britannia! where the queen of arts,

Inspiring vigour, liberty abroad

Walks, unconfin’d, even to thy farthest cots,

And scatters plenty with unsparing hand.

147

Bold, firm, and graceful, are thy generous youth,

By hardship sinew’d, and by danger fir’d,

Scattering the nations where they go; and first,

1470 Or in the listed plain, or stormy seas.

Mild are thy glories too, as o’er the plans

Of thriving peace thy thoughtful sires preside;

In genius, and substantial learning, high;

For every virtue, every worth, renown’d;

Sincere, plain-hearted, hospitable, kind;

Yet like the mustering thunder when provok’d,

The dread of tyrants, and the sole resource

Of those that under grim oppression groan.

Thy sons of glory many! Alfred thine,

1480 In whom the splendour of heroic war,

And more heroic peace, when govern’d well,

Combine; whose hallow’d name the virtues saint,

And his own muses love—the best of kings.

With him thy Edwards and thy Henries shine,

Names dear to fame; the first who deep impress’d

On haughty Gaul the terror of thy arms,

That awes her genius still. In statesmen thou,

And patriots, fertile. Thine a steady More,

148

Who, with a generous though mistaken zeal,

1490 Withstood a brutal tyrant’s useful rage,

Like Cato firm, like Aristides just,

Like rigid Cincinnatus nobly poor—

A dauntless soul erect, who smil’d on death.

Frugal and wise, a Walsingham is thine;

A Drake, who made thee mistress of the deep,

And bore thy name in thunder round the world.

Then flam’d thy spirit high: but who can speak

The numerous worthies of the maiden-reign?

In Ralegh mark their every glory mix’d;

1500 Ralegh, the scourge of Spain! whose breast with all

The sage, the patriot, and the hero burn’d.

Nor sunk his vigour when a coward reign

The warrior fetter’d, and at last resign’d,

To glut the vengeance of a vanquish’d foe.

Then, active still and unrestrain’d, his mind

Explor’d the vast extent of ages past,

And with his prison-hours enrich’d the world;

Yet found no times, in all the long research,

So glorious, or so base, as those he prov’d,

1510 In which he conquer’d, and in which he bled.

149

Nor can the muse the gallant Sidney pass,

The plume of war! with early laurels crown’d,

The lover’s myrtle, and the poet’s bay.

A Hampden too is thine, illustrious land,

Wise, strenuous, firm, of unsubmitting soul,

Who stemm’d the torrent of a downward age

To slavery prone, and bade thee rise again,

In all thy native pomp of freedom bold.

Bright, at his call, thy age of men effulg’d;

1520 Of men on whom late time a kindling eye

Shall turn, and tyrants tremble while they read.

Bring every sweetest flower, and let me strew

The grave where Russell lies; whose temper’d blood,

With calmest cheerfulness for thee resign’d,

Stain’d the sad annals of a giddy reign—

Aiming at lawless power, though meanly sunk

In loose inglorious luxury. With him

His friend, the British Cassius16, fearless bled;

Of high determin’d spirit, roughly brave,

1530 By ancient learning to the enlighten’d love

Of ancient freedom warm’d. Fair thy renown

In awful sages and in noble bards;

150

Soon as the light of dawning science spread

Her orient ray, and wak’d the muses’ song.

Thine is a Bacon, hapless in his choice;

Unfit to stand the civil storm of state,

And through the smooth barbarity of courts,

With firm but pliant virtue, forward still

To urge his course. Him for the studious shade

1540 Kind Nature form’d, deep, comprehensive, clear,

Exact, and elegant; in one rich soul,

Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully join’d.

The great deliverer he! who from the gloom

Of cloister’d monks, and jargon-teaching schools,

Led forth the true philosophy, there long

Held in the magic chain of words and forms,

And definitions void: he led her forth,

Daughter of heaven! that slow-ascending still,

Investigating sure the chain of things,

1550 With radiant finger points to heaven again.

The generous Ashley17 thine, the friend of man;

Who scann’d his nature with a brother’s eye,

His weakness prompt to shade, to raise his aim,

To touch the finer movements of the mind,

151

And with the moral beauty charm the heart.

Why need I name thy Boyle, whose pious search,

Amid the dark recesses of his works,

The great Creator sought? And why thy Locke,

Who made the whole internal world his own?

1560 Let Newton, pure intelligence, whom God

To mortals lent, to trace his boundless works

From laws sublimely simple, speak thy fame

In all philosophy. For lofty sense,

Creative fancy, and inspection keen

Through the deep windings of the human heart,

Is not wild Shakspere thine and Nature’s boast?

Is not each great, each amiable muse

Of classic ages, in thy Milton met?

A genius universal as his theme,

1570 Astonishing as chaos, as the bloom

Of blowing Eden fair, as heaven sublime.

Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget,

The gentle Spenser, fancy’s pleasing son,

Who, like a copious river, pour’d his song

O’er all the mazes of enchanted ground;

Nor thee, his ancient master, laughing sage,

152

Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse,

Well moralis’d, shines through the Gothic cloud

Of time and language o’er thy genius thrown.

1580 May my song soften, as thy daughters I,

Britannia, hail! for beauty is their own,

The feeling heart, simplicity of life,

And elegance, and taste; the faultless form,

Shap’d by the hand of harmony; the cheek,

Where the live crimson, through the native white

Soft-shooting, o’er the face diffuses bloom,

And every nameless grace; the parted lip,

Like the red rose-bud moist with morning dew,

Breathing delight; and, under flowing jet,

1590 Or sunny ringlets, or of circling brown,

The neck slight-shaded, and the swelling breast;

The look resistless, piercing to the soul,

And by the soul inform’d, when drest in love

She sits high-smiling in the conscious eye.

Island of bliss! amid the subject seas

That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up,

At once the wonder, terror, and delight,

Of distant nations; whose remotest shore

153

Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm;

1600 Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults

Baffling, like thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave.

O Thou by whose almighty nod the scale

Of empire rises, or alternate falls,

Send forth the saving virtues round the land,

In bright patrol: white peace, and social love;

The tender-looking charity, intent

On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles;

Undaunted truth, and dignity of mind;

Courage compos’d, and keen; sound temperance,

1610 Healthful in heart and look; clear chastity,

With blushes reddening as she moves along,

Disorder’d at the deep regard she draws;

Rough industry; activity untir’d,

With copious life inform’d, and all awake;

While in the radiant front, superior shines

That first paternal virtue, public zeal—

Who throws o’er all an equal wide survey,

And, ever musing on the common weal,

Still labours glorious with some great design.

1620 Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees,

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Just o’er the verge of day. The shifting clouds

Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train,

In all their pomp attend his setting throne.

Air, earth, and ocean, smile immense. And now,

As if his weary chariot sought the bowers

Of Amphitritè and her tending nymphs,

(So Grecian fable sung) he dips his orb;

155

Now half-immers’d; and now a golden curve

Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.

1630 For ever running an enchanted round,

Passes the day, deceitful, vain, and void;

As fleets the vision o’er the formful brain,

This moment hurrying wild the impassion’d soul,

The next in nothing lost. ’Tis so to him,

The dreamer of this earth, an idle blank:

A sight of horror to the cruel wretch

Who, all day long in sordid pleasure roll’d,

Himself an useless load, has squander’d vile,

Upon his scoundrel train, what might have cheer’d

1640 A drooping family of modest worth.

But to the generous still-improving mind,

That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy,

Diffusing kind beneficence around,

Boastless, as now descends the silent dew—

To him the long review of order’d life

Is inward rapture, only to be felt.

Confess’d from yonder slow-extinguish’d clouds,

All ether softening, sober evening takes

Her wonted station in the middle air;

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1650 A thousand shadows at her beck. First this

She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye

Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still,

In circle following circle, gathers round,

To close the face of things. A fresher gale

Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream,

Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn;

While the quail clamours for his running mate.

Wide o’er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,

A whitening shower of vegetable down

1660 Amusive floats. The kind impartial care

Of Nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed

Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year,

From field to field the feather’d seeds she wings.

Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge,

The glow worm lights his gem; and, through the dark,

A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields

The world to night; not in her winter robe

Of massy Stygian woof, but loose-array’d

In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray,

Glanc’d from the imperfect surfaces of things,

Flings half an image on the straining eye;

1690 While wavering woods, and villages, and streams,

And rocks, and mountain tops, that long retain’d

The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,

Uncertain if beheld. Sudden to heaven

Thence weary vision turns; where, leading soft

The silent hours of love, with purest ray

Sweet Venus shines; and from her genial rise

When day light sickens, till it springs afresh,

Unrivall’d reigns, the fairest lamp of night.

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1730 With thee, serene philosophy, with thee,

And thy bright garland, let me crown my song!

Effusive source of evidence, and truth!

A lustre shedding o’er the ennobled mind,

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Stronger than summer noon; and pure as that

Whose mild vibrations soothe the parted soul,

New to the dawning of celestial day.

Hence through her nourish’d powers, enlarg’d by thee,

She springs aloft, with elevated pride,

Above the tangling mass of low desires

1740 That bind the fluttering crowd; and, angel-wing’d,

The heights of science and of virtue gains,

Where all is calm and clear; with nature round,

Or in the starry regions, or the abyss,

To reason’s and to fancy’s eye displayed:

The first up-tracing, from the dreary void,

The chain of causes and effects to him,

The world-producing Essence, who alone

Possesses being; while the last receives

The whole magnificence of heaven and earth,

1750 And every beauty, delicate or bold,

Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense,

Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.

Tutor’d by thee, hence poetry exalts

Her voice to ages; and informs the page

With music, image, sentiment, and thought,

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Never to die! the treasure of mankind,

Their highest honour, and their truest joy!

Without thee, what were unenlighten’d man?

A savage roaming through the woods and wilds,

1760 In quest of prey; and with the unfashion’d fur

Rough-clad; devoid of every finer art,

And elegance of life. Nor happiness

Domestic, mix’d of tenderness and care,

Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss,

Nor guardian law, were his; nor various skill

To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool

Mechanic; nor the heaven-conducted prow

Of navigation bold, that fearless braves

The burning line or dares the wintry pole,

1770 Mother severe of infinite delights!

Nothing, save rapine, indolence, and guile,

And woes on woes, a still revolving train!

Whose horrid circle had made human life

Than non-existence worse: but, taught by thee,

Ours are the plans of policy and peace;

To live like brothers, and conjunctive all

Embellish life. While thus laborious crowds

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Ply the tough oar, philosophy directs

The ruling helm; or, like the liberal breath

1780 Of potent heaven, invisible, the sail

Swells out, and bears the inferior world along.

Nor to this evanescent speck of earth

Poorly confin’d—the radiant tracts on high

Are her exalted range; intent to gaze

Creation through; and, from that full complex

Of never-ending wonders, to conceive

Of the Sole Being right, who spoke the word,

And nature mov’d complete. With inward view,

Thence on the ideal kingdom swift she turns

1790 Her eye; and instant, at her powerful glance,

The obedient phantoms vanish or appear;

Compound, divide, and into order shift,

Each to his rank, from plain perception up

To the fair forms of fancy’s fleeting train;

To reason then, deducing truth from truth,

And notion quite abstract; where first begins

The world of spirits, action all, and life

Unfettered, and unmix’d. But here the cloud,

So wills Eternal Providence, sits deep.

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1800 Enough for us to know that this dark state,

In wayward passions lost, and vain pursuits,

This infancy of being, cannot prove

The final issue of the works of God,

By boundless Love and perfect Wisdom form’d,

And ever rising with the rising mind.