May give an useful leffion to the head,
And learning, wifer grow without his books.
Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
Have oft-times no connexion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men,
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wifdom builds,
'Till fmooth'd and squar'd and fitted to its place,
Does but incumber whom it seems t'enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much,
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talifmans and spells,
By which the magic art of fhrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall'd.
Some, to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment, hood-wink'd. Some, the ftyle
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds
Of error leads them, by a tune entranc'd.
While floth feduces more, too weak to bear
The infupportable fatigue of thought,
And swallowing, therefore, without pause or choice,
The total grift unfifted, husks and all.
But trees, and rivulets whofe rapid course
Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer,
And sheep-walks, populous with bleating lambs, And lanes, in which the primrofe ere her time Peeps through the mofs that cloaths the hawthorn root,
Deceive no ftudent. Wifdom there, and truth,
Not fhy, as in the world, and to be won
By flow folicitation, feize at once
The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.
What prodigies can pow'r divine perform
More grand than it produces year by year,
And all in fight of inattentive man ?
Familiar with th' effect we flight the cause,
And, in the constancy of nature's course,
The regular return of genial months,
And renovation of a faded world,
See nought to wonder at.
As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race
Of the undeviating and punctual fun,
How would the world admire! but speaks it less
An agency divine, to make him know
His moment when to fink and when to rife,
Age after age, than to arreft his courfe?
All we behold is miracle, but feen
So duly, all is miracle in vain.
Where now the vital energy that mov'd,
While summer was, the pure and fubtle lymph
Through th' imperceptible meandering veins
Of leaf and flow'r? It fleeps; and th' icy touch
Of unprolific winter has impress'd
A cold stagnation on th' inteftine tide.
But let the months go round, a few short months,
And all shall be reftor'd. The naked fhoots,
Barren as lances, among which the wind
Makes wintry mufic, fighing as it goes,
Shall put their graceful foliage on again,
And more afpiring, and with ampler fpread,
Shall boast new charms, and more than they have
Then, each in its peculiar honors clad,
Shall publish, even to the diftant eye,
Its family and tribe. Laburnum rich
Its ftreaming gold; fyringa iv'ry pure;
The scented and the scentlefs rofe, this red
And of an humbler growth, the other tall,
And throwing up into the darkest gloom
Of neighb'ring cyprefs, or more fable yew,
Her filver globes, light as the foamy surf
That the wind feers from the broken wave;
The lilac, various in array, now white,
Now fanguine, and her beauteous head now fet
With purple spikes pyramidal, as if
Studious of ornament, yet unrefolv'd
Which hue the most approv'd, fhe chofe them all
Copious of flow'rs the woodbine, pale and wan,
But well compensating her fickly looks
With never-cloying odours, early and late;
Hypericum all bloom, fo thick a swarm
Of flow'rs, like flies cloathing her slender rods,
That scarce a leaf appears; mezerion toc,
Though leaflefs, well attir'd, and thick befet
With blushing wreaths, investing ev'ry spray;
Althea with the purple eye; the broom,
Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloy'd,
Her bloffoms; and luxuriant above all
The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets,
The deep dark green of whofe unvarnish'd leaf
Makes more confpicuous, and illumines more
The bright profufion of her scatter'd stars.—
These have been, and these shall be in their day,
And all this uniform, uncolour'd scene,
Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load,
And flush into variety again.
From dearth to plenty, and from death to life,
Is nature's progrefs when the lectures man
In heav'nly truth; evincing, as she makes
The grand tranfition, that there lives and works
A fou!
A foul in all things, and that foul is God.
The beauties of the wilderness are his,
That make fo gay the folitary place
Where no eye fees them. And the fairer forms That cultivation glories in, are his.
He fets the bright proceffion on its way,
And marshals all the order of the year;
He marks the bounds which winter may not país,
And blunts his pointed fury; in its cafe,
Ruffet and rude, folds up the tender germ.
Uninjur'd, with inimitable art,
And ere one flow'ry feafon fades and dies,
Defigns the blooming wonders of the next.
Some fay that, in the origin of things
When all creation started into birth,
The infant elements receiv'd a law
From which they fwerve not fince. That under
Of that controuling ordinance they move,
And need not his immediate hand, who firft
Prefcrib'd their courfe, to regulate it now.
Thus dream they, and contrive to fave a God
Th' incumbrance of his own concerns, and spare
The
great Artificer of all that moves
The stress of a continual act, the pain
Of unremitted vigilance and care,
|