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FROM MESSIAH.

Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears !1
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity.
Lo, Earth receives him from the bending skies!
Sink down, ye mountains! and ye valleys, rise!
With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay!
Be smooth, ye rocks! ye rapid floods, give way!
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold :
Hear him, ye deaf! and all ye blind behold!?

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 every face he wipes off every tear.

In adamantine chains shall Death be bound,3
And Hell's grim tyrant feel the eternal wound.

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 plow-share end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-lived 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 flowery palms succeed,

And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,7
And boys in flowery 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,
Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.
Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!

the patron of the opposition against Walpole's ministry. On the fall of that statesman, Thomson's friend, now in power, conferred on the poet a situation which, while it yielded him a competent revenue, he could execute by proxy, so that the concluding years of his life were spent in ease in a comfortable cottage on the banks of the Thames, near Richmond. He died in 1748 of a fever contracted by a cold. Few have been more lamented by friendship than James Thomson. His benevolent nature, and his numberless admirable qualities, independent of his genius, endeared him to all.

Besides the "Seasons," he left a long and somewhat tedious poem, "Liberty;" some tragedies, the most successful of which was "Tancred and Sigismunda;" several elegies and smaller pieces; and the "Castle of Indolence," a composition replete with beauty of imagery and melody of verse, especially the first canto, which appeared in the year of his premature death.

FROM SPRING.

DOMESTIC BLISS.

BUT happy they, the happiest of their kind,
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.
'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,

Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,

That binds their peace, but harmony itself,

Attuning all their passions into love;

Where friendship full exerts her softest power,

Perfect esteem, enliven'd by desire

Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;

Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence.

What is the world to them,
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all!
Who in each other clasp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish;
Something than beauty dearer, should they look
Or on the mind, or mind-illumined face;
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love,
The richest bounty of indulgent Heaven.
Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human blossom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,
The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,

FROM SUMMER.

To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
Oh, speak the joy! ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while you look around,

And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All various nature pressing on the heart :
An elegant sufficiency, content,

Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love;
And thus their moments fly. The seasons thus,
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy; and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads:
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild ;*
When, after the long vernal day of life,
Enamour'd more, as more remembrance swells
With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they sink in social sleep;
Together freed, their gentle spirits fly

To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.

FROM SUMMER.

SUNRISE.

Yonder comes the powerful king of day, Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud, The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow Illumed 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

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

Meantime the expecting nations, circled gay
With all the various tribes of foodful earth,
Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up

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
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.

FROM WINTER.

A WINTER STORM

Then comes the father of the tempest forth, Wrapt in black glooms. First joyless rains obscure Drive through the mingling skies with vapour foul; Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods, That grumbling wave below. The unsightly plain Lies a brown deluge, as the low-bent clouds Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still Combine, and deepening into night, shut up The day's fair face. The wanderers of Heaven, Each to his home, retire; save those that love To take their pastime in the troubled air, Or skimming flutter round the dimply pool. The cattle from the untasted fields return, And ask, with meaning low, their wonted stalls, Or ruminate in the contiguous shade. Thither the household feathery people crowd, The crested cock, with all his female train, Pensive, and dripping; while the cottage hind Hangs o'er the enlivening blaze, and taleful there Recounts his simple frolic: much he talks,

And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that blows
Without, and rattles on his humble roof.

Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swell'd,
And the mix'd ruin of its banks o'erspread,
At last the roused-up river pours along :
Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes,
From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild,
Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far;
Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads,
Calm, sluggish, silent; till again, constrain'd
Between two meeting hills, it bursts away,

Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream;
There, gathering triple force, rapid and deep,

It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders through.

*

*

*

**

When from the pallid sky the Sun descends,

FROM WINTER.

With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb
Uncertain wanders, stain'd; red fiery streaks
Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds
Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet
Which master to obey: while rising slow,
Blank, in the leaden-colour'd east, the Moon
Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns.
Seen through the turbid fluctuating air,
The stars obtuse emit a shiver'd ray;

Or frequent seen to shoot athwart the gloom,
And long behind them trail the whitening blaze.

Ocean, unequal press'd, with broken tide

*

And blind commotion, heaves; while from the shore,
Eat into caverns by the restless wave,

And forest-rustling mountains, comes a voice,
That solemn sounding bids the world prepare.
Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst,
And hurls the whole precipitated air,
Down, in a torrent. On the passive main
Descends the ethereal force, and with strong gust
Turns from its bottom the discolour'd deep.
Through the black night that sits immense around,
Lash'd into foam, the fierce conflicting brine
Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn.
Meantime the mountain-billows to the clouds
In dreadful tumult swell'd, surge above surge,
Burst into chaos with tremendous roar,
And anchor'd navies from their stations drive,
Wild as the winds across the howling waste
Of mighty waters: now the inflated wave
Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot
Into the secret chambers of the deep,
The wintery Baltic thundering o'er their head.
Emerging thence again, before the breath
Of full-exerted Heaven, they wing their course,
And dart on distant coasts; if some sharp rock,
Or shoal insidious, break not their career,
And in loose fragments fling them floating round.

Low waves the rooted forest, vex'd, and sheds
What of its tarnish'd honours yet remain ;
Dash'd down, and scatter'd, by the tearing wind's
Assiduous fury, its gigantic limbs.

Thus struggling through the dissipated grove,
The whirling tempest raves along the plain;
And on the cottage thatch'd, or lordly roof,
Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base.
Sleep frighted flies; and round the rocking dome,
For entrance eager, howls the savage blast.

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