But Chance is not; or is not where thou reign'st:
Thy Providence forbids that fickle power
(If power she be that works but to confound)
To mix her wild vagaries with thy laws.
Yet thus we dote, refufing while we can
Instruction, and inventing to ourselves
Gods fuch as guilt makes welcome; Gods that
sleep,

Or difregard our follies, or that fit
Amused spectators of this bustling stage.
Thee we reject, unable to abide

Thy purity, till pure as thou art pure;

Made fuch by thee, we love thee for that cause,
For which we shunn'd and hated thee before.
Then we are free. Then liberty, like day,
Breaks on the foul, and by a flash from Heaven
Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.

A voice is heard that mortal ears hear not,
Till thou haft touch'd them; 'tis the voice of fong,
A loud Hofanna fent from all thy works;
Which he that hears it with a fhout repeats,
And adds his rapture to the general praise.
In that bleft moment Nature, throwing wide
Her veil opaque, discloses with a smile
The Author of her beauties, who, retired
Behind his own creation, works unfeen
By the impure, and hears his power denied.
Thou art the fource and centre of all minds,
Their only point of reft, eternal Word!
From thee departing they are loft, and rove
At random without honour, hope, or peace.
From thee is all that foothes the life of

man,

His high endeavour, and his glad fuccefs,
His ftrength to fuffer, and his will to serve.
But, O thou bounteous Giver of all good,
Thou art of all thy gifts thy felf the crown!
Give what thou canft, without thee we are poor;
And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away.

THE TASK.

BOOK VI. THE WINTER WALK

AT NOON.

ARGUMENT.

Bells at a distance. Their effect. A fine noon in winter. A fheltered walk. Meditation better than books. Our familiarity with the courfe of nature makes it appear lefs wonderful than it is. The transformation that spring effects in a shrubbery described. A mistake concerning the courfe of nature corrected. God maintains it by an unremitted act. The amusements fashionable at this hour of the day reproved. Animals happy, a delightful fight. Origin of cruelty to animals. That it is a great crime proved from Scrip

ture.

That proof illustrated by a tale. A line drawn between the lawful and the unlawful destruction of them. Their good and useful properties infifted on. Apology for the encomiums bestowed by the author on animals. Inftances of man's extravagant praise of man. The groans of the creation shall have an end. A view taken of the restoration of all things. An Invocation and an Invitation of Him who shall bring it to pass. The retired man vindicated from the charge of ufeleffness. Conclufion.

THE TASK.

BOOK VI THE WINTER WALK AT

NOON.

HERE is in fouls a fympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is

pleased

With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
How foft the mufic of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear

In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and fonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory flept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,
That in a few short moments I retrace

(As in a map the voyager

his course)

The windings of my way through many years.
Short as in retrospect the journey seems,

It seem'd not always fhort; the rugged path,