HAIL! Source of Being! Universal Soul
Of Heav'n and Earth! Essential Presence, hail !
To thee I bend the knee; to thee my thoughts
Continual climb; who with a master-hand,
Hast the great whole into perfection touch'd.
By fortune sunk, but form'd of generous mould,
And charm'd with cares beyond the vulgar breast,
In some lone cot amid the distant woods,
Sustain'd alone by providential Heav'n,
Oft, as they weeping, eye their infant train,
Check their own appetites, and give them all.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To
pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?
To die in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life;
Total extinction of the enlightened 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,
To bless the wildly-devious morning walk?
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.
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,
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.
Emblem instructive of the virtuous man,
Who keeps his temper'd mind serene, and
And every passion aptly harmoniz'd,
Amid a jarring world with vice inflam'd.
Beneath the spreading tamarind that shakes,
Fann'd by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit.
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 bare the ship along;
And, from the partners of that cruel trade,
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.
Of agonizing ships, from shore to shore:
Heard nightly plung'd, amid the sullen waves,
The frequent corse; while on each other fix'd
In sad presage, the blank assistant seem'd,
Silent to ask, whom fate would next demand.
Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge
Fearing to turn, abhors society;
Dependants, friends, relations, Love himself,
Savag'd by woe, forget the tender tie,
The sweet engagement of the feeling heart.
But vain their selfish care: the circling sky,
The wide enlivening air is full of fate;
And, struck by turns, in solitary pangs
They fall, unblest, untended, and unmourn'd. p. 91.
"Fear not," he said,
Sweet innocence! thou stranger to offence,
And inward storm! He, who yon skies involves
In frowns of darkness, ever smiles on thee
With kind regard. O'er thee the secret shaft
That wastes at midnight, or the undreaded hour
Of noon, flies harmless: and that very voice,
Which thunders terror through the guilty heart,
With tongues of seraphs whispers peace to thine.
'Tis safety to be near thee,
Shall he, so soon forgetful of the hand
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?
Even, from the body's purity, the mind
Receives a secret sympathetic aid.
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.
Then to the shelter of the hut he fled;
And the wild season, sordid, pin'd away.
For home he had not; home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,
Supporting and supported, polish'd friends,
And dear relations mingle into bliss.
All is the gift of industry; whate'er
Exalts, embellishes, and renders life
Delightful. Pensive Winter cheer'd by him,
Sits at the social fire, and happy hears
Th' excluded tempest idly rave along.
Be not too narrow, husbandmen! but fling
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth,
The liberal handful. Think, O, grateful think!
How good the God of harvest is to you:
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields ;
While these unhappy partners of your kind
Wide hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole. The various turns
Of fortune ponder; that your sons may want
What now with hard reluctance faint ye give. p. 120.
She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor liv'd in a cottage, far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale:
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
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