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 fummer was, the pure and subtle lymph
Through th' imperceptible meandering veins
Of leaf and flow'r? It fleeps; and th' icy touch
Of unprolific winter has imprefs'd

A cold ftagnation on th' intestine tide.

But let the months go round, a few short months,
And all fhall be reftor'd. Thefe 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 spread,

Shall boast new charms, and more than they have loft. Then, each in its peculiar honors clad,

Shall publish, even to the distant eye,

Its family and tribe. Laburnum rich

In streaming gold; fyringa iv'ry pure;
The fcented and the scentless rose, this red
And of an humbler growth, the * other tall,
And throwing up into the darkest gloom
Of neighb'ring cypress, or more fable yew,
Her filver globes, light as the foamy furf
That the wind fevers 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 unresolv'd

Which hue she most approv'd, she chose 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 fwarm

Of flow'rs, like flies cloathing her flender rods,
That scarce a leaf appears; mezerion too,
Though leaflefs, well attir'd, and thick befet

The Guelder-rofe.

With blushing wreaths, invefting ev'ry fpray

Althea with the purple eye; the broom,
Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloy'd,

Her bloffoms; and luxuriant above all

The jafmine, throwing wide her elegant fweets,
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 thefe fhall be in their day,
And all this uniform, uncolour'd fcene,

Shall be difmantled 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 fhe makes
The grand tranfition, that there lives and works

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

:

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 pass,

And blunts his pointed fury: in its case,

Ruffet and rude, folds uu the tender
Uninjur'd, with inimitable art,

germ

And, ere one flow'ry season 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 force
Of that controuling ordinance they move,

And need not his immediate hand, who first
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

VOL. II.

R

The

The stress of a continual act, the pain

Of unremitted vigilance and care,

As too laborious and fevere a task.
So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems,
To span Omnipotence, and measure might
That knows no measure, by the scanty rule
And standard of his own, that is to-day,
And is not ere to-morrow's fun go down.
But how should matter occupy a charge
Dull as it is, and fatisfy a law

So vast in its demands, unless impell'd
To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force,
And under preffure of fome confcious cause?
The Lord of all, himself through all diffus'd,
Suftains, and is the life of all that lives.

Nature is but a name for an effect

Whofe caufe is God. He feeds the fecret fire

By which the mighty procefs is maintain'd,
Who fleeps not, is not weary; in whofe fight
Slow-circling ages are as tranfient days;

Whofe