Laughs with abundance, and the land once lean,
Or fertile only in its own disgrace,
Exults to see its thiftly curse repealed.
The various season woven into one,
And that one season an eternal spring,
The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence
For there is nonė to covet, all are full.
The lion, and the libbard, and the bear,
Graze with the scarless flucks. All baik at noon
Together, or all gambol in the shade
Of the same grove, and drink one common stream.
Antipathies are none. No foe to man
Lurks in the serpent now, The mother sees
And fmiles to see her infant's playful hand
Stretch'd forth to dally with the crefted worm,
To ftroke his azure neck, or to receive
The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue.
All creatures woréhip man, and all mankind
One Lord, one Father. Error has no place ;
That creeping pestilence is driv'n away,
The breath of Heav'n has chased it. In the beart
No passion touches a discordant Aring,
But all is harmony and love. Disease
Is not. The pure and uncontaminate blood
Holds its due course, nor fears the froft of age;
One song employs all nations, and all cry
“ Worthy the Lamb, for he was Nain for us."
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks.
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops
From diftant mountains catch the flying joy,
Till nation after nation taught the strain,
Each rolls the rapturous Hosanna round.
Behold the treasure of the promise filled,
See Salem built, the labour of a God !
Bright as a fun the sacred city shines ;
All kingdoms and all princes of the earth
Flock to that light; the glory of all lands
Flows into her, unbounded is her joy
And endless her increase. Thy rams are there
Nabaloth, and the flocks of Kedar there ;
The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind.
And Saba's spicy groves pay tribute there.
Praise is in all her gates. Upon her walls,
And in her streets, and in her fpacious courts
Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there
Kneels with the native of the farthest West,
And Æthiopia spreads abroad the hand
And worships. Her report has travell’d forth
Into all lands. From every clime they come
To see thy beauty and to share thy joy,
O Sion! an assembly such as earth
Saw never, such as Heav'n stoops down to see.
Thus heav'n-ward all things tend. For all were once Perfect, and all must be at length restord.
So God has greatly purposed; who would else
In his dishonoured works himself endure
Dishonour, and be wrong'd without redress,
Haste then, and wheel away a shatter'd world,
Ye Now revolving seasons! We would see,
(A fight to which our eyes are strangers yet)
A world that does not dread and hate his laws,
And suffer for its crime: would learn how fair
The creature is that God pronounces good,
How pleasant in itself what pleases him.
Here ev'ry drop of honey hides a fting,
Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flow'rs,
And ev’n the joy that haply some poor heast
Derives from Heav'n, pure as the fountain is,
Is sullied in the stream ; taking a taint
From touch of human lips, at best impure.
Oh for a world in principle as chaste
As this is gross and selfish ! over which
Custom and prejudice shall bear no fway
That govern all things here, should’ring aside
The meek and modeft Truth, and forcing her
To seek a refuge from the tongue of Strife
In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men ;.
Where violence shall never lift the sword:
Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong,
Leaving the poor no remedy but tears.
Where he that fills an office, shall efteem
Th’occasion it presents of doing good
More than the perquisite. Where law shall speak
Selde m or never but as wisdom prompts
And equity; not jealous more to guard
A worthless form, than to decide aright.
Where fashion shall not sanctify abuse,
Nor sinooth good-breeding (supplemental grace)
With lean performance ape the work of love.
BY 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 foftening 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
Shoots full perfection thro' the swelling year :
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispring sales,
Thy beauty 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 rollid,
Majestic darkness ! on the whirlwind's wing,
Riding sublime, Thou bidst the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blaft,
Mysterious round; what skill, what force divine
Deep-felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combin'd;
Shade, unperceiv’d, so foftening into fhade ;
And all so forming an harmonious whole ;
That as they still fucceed, they ravish ftill.
But wandering oft,' with rude unconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand
That, ever busy wheels the filent fpheres ;
Works in the secret deep; shoots steaming thence
The fair profusion that o'er spreads 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 foul Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, In adoration join ; and ardent raise One general song; To Him, ye vocal gales, Breathe foft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes :
|