From this hoar hill, that climbs above the plain,
Half way up heaven, ambitious, brown with woods
Of broadest shade, and terraced round with walks
Winding and wild, that deep embowering rise,
Maze above maze, through all its sheltered height; —
From thence the aerial concave without cloud,
Translucent, and in purest azure dressed;

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The boundless scene beneath, hill, dale, and plain;
The precipice abrupt; the distant deep,
Whose shores remurmur to the sounding surge;
The nearest forest in wide circuit spread,
Solemn recess ! whose solitary walks

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Fair Truth and Wisdom love; the bordering lawn,
With flocks and herds enriched; the daisied vale;

The river's crystal, and the meadow's green -
Grateful diversity! — allure the eye

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Abroad, to rove amid ten thousand charms.

These scenes, where every Virtue, every Muse,

Delighted range, serene the soul, and lift,

Borne on Devotion's wing, beyond the pole,

To highest Heaven, her thought, to Nature's God,
First source of all things lovely, all things good,

Eternal, Infinité ! before whose throne

Sits Sovereign Bounty, and through heaven and earth

Ceaseless diffuses plenitude of bliss.

Him all things own; he speaks, and it is day :

Obedient to his nod alternate night

Obscures the world: the seasons at his call,

Succeed in train, and lead the year around.

While reason thus, and rapture fill the heart,

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Friends of mankind, good angels, hovering near,

Their holy influence, deep infusing, lend;

And in still whispers, soft as Zephyr's breath,

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When scarce the green leaf trembles, through her powers Inspire new vigor, purer light supply,

And kindle every virtue into flame.

Celestial intercourse! superior bliss,

Which vice ne'er knew! health of the enlivened soul,
And heaven on earth begun!

EXERCISE XIX.

Trust in God.-WORDSWORTH.

How beautiful this dome of sky!

And the vast hills, in fluctuation fixed

At thy command, how awful! Shall the soul,

Human and rational, report of Thee

Even less than these? Be mute who will, who can,

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Yet I will praise Thee with impassioned voice:

My lips that may forget Thee in the crowd,
Cannot forget Thee here, where thou hast built,
For thy own glory in the wilderness.

Me didst Thou constitute a priest of thine,
In such a temple as we now behold
Reared for Thy presence; therefore am I bound
To worship here- and everywhere — as one
Not doomed to ignorance, though forced to tread,
From childhood up, the ways of poverty

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From unreflecting ignorance preserved,

And from debasement rescued. By Thy grace

The particle divine remained unquenched;
And, mid the wild weeds of a rugged soil,

Thy bounty caused to flourish deathless flowers,
From Paradise transplanted. Wintry age
Impends; the frost will gather round my heart;
And if they wither, I am worse than dead.

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Come labor, when the worn-out frame requires

''erpetual sabbath; come disease and want,

And sad exclusion through decay of sense;
But leave me unabated trust in Thee;
And let Thy favor, to the end of life,

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Inspire me with ability to seek

Repose and hope among eternal things,

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Father of heaven and earth! and I am rich,

And will possess my portion in content.

And what are things eternal ?- Powers depart,

For our support, the measures and the forms,

Which an abstract Intelligence supplies;

Whose kingdom is where time and space are not:
Of other converse, which mind, soul, and heart,

Do, with united urgency, require,

What more, that may not perish? Thou, dread Source, Prime, self-existing Cause and End of all,

That, in the scale of being, fill their place,

Above all human region, or below,

Set and sustained; - Thou, — who didst wrap the cloud

Of infancy around us, that Thyself,

Therein, with our simplicity awhile,

Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed,
Who, from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
Or from its death-like void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restorest us, daily, to the powers of sense,
And reason's steadfast rule,

Art everlasting.

Thou, Thou alone,

This universe shall pass away,

a frame

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Glorious! because the shadow of Thy might,
A step, or link, for intercourse with Thee.
Ah! if the time must come, in which my feet
No more shall stray where meditation leads,
By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild,
Loved haunts like these, the unimprisoned mind
May yet have scope to range among her own,
Her thoughts, her images, her high desires.
If the dear faculty of sight should fail,
Still it may be allowed me to remember
What visionary powers of eye and soul,
In youth, were mine; when stationed on the top
Of some huge hill, expectant, I beheld
The sun rise up, from distant climes returned,
Darkness to chase, and sleep, and bring the day,
His bounteous gift! or saw him, towards the deep
Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds
Attended! Then my spirit was entranced

With joy exalted to beatitude;

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The measure of my soul was filled with bliss,
And holiest love; as earth, sea, air, with light,

With pomp, with glory, with magnificence!

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EXERCISE XX.

Happiness sought in Wealth.-Pollok.

Gold many hunted, sweat and bled for gold;
Waked all the night, and labored all the day.
And what was this allurement dost thou ask?
A dust dug from the bowels of the earth,
Which, being cast into the fire, came out
A shining thing that fools admired, and called

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A god; and in devout and humble plight

Before it kneeled, the greater to the less;

And on its altar sacrificed ease, peace,

Truth, faith, integrity; good conscience, friends,
Love, charity, benevolence, and all

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The sweet and tender sympathies of life;

And, to complete the horrid, murderous rite,

And signalize their folly, offered up
Their souls and an eternity of bliss,

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To gain them— what ? —
A feverish hour that hasted to be done,
And ended in the bitterness of woe.

- an hour of dreaming joy,

Most, for the luxuries it bought, the pomp,
The praise, the glitter, fashion, and renown,
This yellow phantom followed and adored.
But there was one in folly further gone,
With eye awry, incurable, and wild,
The laughing-stock of devils and of men,
And by his guardian angel quite given up,-
The miser, who with dust inanimate

Held wedded intercourse. Ill-guided wretch!

Thou mightst have seen him at the midnight hour,
When good men slept, and in light winged dreams
Ascended up to God, — in wasteful hall,

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With vigilance and fasting worn to skin

And bone, and wrapped in most debasing rags,

Thou mightst have seen him bending o'er his heaps,

And holding strange communion with his gold;

And as his thievish fancy seemed to hear

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The night-man's foot approach, starting alarmed,

And in his old decrepit, withered hand,

That palsv shook, grasping this yellow earth

To make it sure. Of all God made upright,

And in their nostrils breathed a living soul,

Most fallen, most prone, most earthy, most debased

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