of young astonishment; the sober zeal

To thee nor Tempé shall refuse ; nor watch
of age, commenting on prodigious things, of winged Hydra guard Hesperian fruits
For such the bounteous Providence of Heaven, From thy free spoil. O bear then, unreprov'd
In every breast implanting this desire

Thy smiling treasures to the green recess of objects new, and strange, to urge us on Where young Dione stays. With sweetest airs With unremitted labor to pursue

Entice her forth to lend her angel-form Those sacred stores that wait the ripening soul, For Beauty's honor'd image. Hither turn In Truth's exhaustless bosom. What need words Thy graceful footsteps ; hither, gentle maid To paint its power? For this the daring youth Incline thy polish'd forehead : let thy eyes Breaks from his weeping mother's anxious arms, Effuse the mildness of their azure dawn; In foreign climes to rove: the pensive sage, And may the fanning breezes waft aside Heedless of sleep, or midnight's harmful damp, | Thy radiant locks : disclosing, as it bends Hangs o'er the sickly taper; and untir'd

With airy softness from the marble neck, The virgin follows, with enchanted step,

The cheek fair-blooming, and the rosy lip, The mazes of some wild and wondrous tale, Where winning smiles and pleasures sweet as love From morn to eve; unmindful of her form, With sanctity and wisdom, tempering blend Unmindful of the happy dress that stole

Their soft allurement. Then the pleasing force The wishes of the youth, when every maid of Nature, and her kind parental care, With envy pin'd. Hence, finally, by night Worthier I'd sing : then all the enamour'd youth, The village-matron, round the blazing hearth, With each admiring virgin, to my lyre Suspends the infant-audience with her tales, Should throng attentive, while I point on high Breathing astonishment! of witching rhymes, Where Beauty's living image, like the morn And evil spirits; of the death-bed call

That wakes in Zephyr's arms the blushing May, Of him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd Moves onward; or as Venus, when she stood The orphan's portion; of unquiet souls

Effulgent on the pearly car, and smild, Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt Fresh from the deep, and conscious of her form, of deeds in life conceald; of shapes that walk To see the Tritons tune their vocal shells, At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave And each cerulean sister of the flood The torch of Hell around the murderer's bed. With loud acclaim atlend her o'er the waves, At every solemn pause the crowd recoil,

To seek the Idalian bower. Ye smiling band Gazing each other speechless, and congeald Of youths and virgins, who through all the maze With shivering sighs; till eager for the event, Of young desire with rival steps pursue Around the beldame all erect they hang,

This charm of beauiy; if the pleasing toil Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'd. Can yield a moment's respite, hither turn

But lo! disclos'd in all her smiling pomp, Your favorable ear, and trust my words. Where beauty onward moving claims the verse I do not mean to wake the gloomy form Her charms inspire: the freely-flowing verse Of Superstition dress'd in Wisdom's garb, In thy immortal praise, O form divine,

To damp your tender hopes; I do not mean Smooths her mellifluent stream. 'Thee, Beauty, thee, To bid the jealous thunderer fire the heavens, The regal dome, and thy enlivening ray

Or shapes infernal rend the groaning Earth The mossy roofs adore : thou, better Sun! To fright you from your joys: my cheerful song For ever beamest on the enchanted heart

With better omens calls you to the field, Love, and harmonious wonder, and delight Pleas'd with your generous ardor in the chase, Poetic. Brightest progeny of Heaven!

And warm like you. Then tell me, for ye know, How shall I trace thy features? where select Does Beauty ever deign to dwell where health The roseate hues to emulate thy bloom ?

And active use are strangers ? Is her charm Haste then, my song. through Nature's wide expanse, Confess'd in aught, whose most peculiar ends Haste then, and gather all her comeliest wealth, Are lame and fruitless? Or did Nature mean Whate'er bright spoils the forid earth contains, This pleasing call the herald of a lie ; Whate'er the waters, or the liquid air,

To hide the shame of discord and disease,
To deck thy lovely labor. Wilt thou fly

And catch with fair hypocrisy the heart
With laughing Autumn to the Atlantic isles, Of idle faith? O no! with better cares
And range with him the Hesperian field, and see The indulgent mother, conscious how infirm
Where'er his fingers touch the fruitful grove, Her offspring tread the paths of good and ill,
The branches shoot with gold; where'er his step By this illustrious image, in each kind
Marks the glad soil, the tender clusters grow Still most illustrious where the object holds
With purple ripeness, and invest each hill

Its native powers most perfect, she by this
As with the blushes of an evening sky?

Illumes the headstrong impulse of desire,
Or wilt thou rather stoop thy vagrant plume, And sanctifies his choice. The generous glebe
Where gliding through bis daughter's honor'd shades, Whose bosom smiles with verdure, the clear tract
The smooth Peneus from his glassy flood

Of streams delicious to the thirsty soul,
Reflecis purpureal Tempé's pleasant scene? The bloom of nectar'd fruitage ripe to sense,
Fair Tempé! haunt belov'd of sylvan powers, And every charm of animated things,
Of Nymphs and Fauns; where in the golden age Are only pledges of a state sincere,
They play'd in secret on the shady brink

The integrity and order of their frame,
With ancien: Pan : while round their choral steps When all is well within, and every end
Young Hours and genial Gales with constant hand Accomplish'd. Thus was Beauty sent from Heaven,
Shower'd blossoms, odors, shower'd ambrosial dews, The lovely ministress of truth and good
And Spring's Elysian bloom. Her flowery store In this dark world : for truth and good are one,

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And Beauty dwells in them, and they in her, From their first twilight, shining forth at length With like participation. Wherefore then,

To full meridian splendor. Or degree O sons of Earth! would ye dissolve the tie? The least and lowliest, in the effusive warmth O wherefore, with a rash impetuous aim,

Of colors mingling with a random blazo, Seek ye those flowery joys with which the hand Doth Beauty dwell. Then higher in the line :: of lavish Fancy paints each flattering scene And variation of determin'd shape, Where Beauty seems to dwell, nor once inquire Where Truth's eternal measures mark the bound Where is the sanction of elernal truth,

of circle, cube, or spherc. The third ascent Or where the seal of undeceitful good,

Unites this varied symmetry of parts
To save your search from folly! Wanting these, With coloris bland allurement; as the pearl
Lo! Beauty withers in your void embrace, Shines in the concave of its azure bed,
And with the glittering of an idiot's toy

And painted shells indent their speckled wreath
Did Fancy mock your vows. Nor let the gleam Then more attractive rise the blooming forms
or youthful hope, that shines upon your hearts, Through which the breath of Nature has infus'd
Be chill'd or clouded at this awful task,

Her genial power to draw with pregnant veins To learn the lore of undeceitful good,

Nutritious moisture from the bounteous Earth, And truth eternal. Though the poisonous charms In fruit and seed prolific: thus the fowers of baleful Superstition guide the feet

Their purple honors with the spring resume; Of servile numbers, through a dreary way

And thus the stately tree with Autumn bends To their abode, through deserts, thorns, and mire ; With blushing treasures. But more lovely still And leave the wretched pilgrim all forlorn

Is Nature's charm, where to the full consent To muse at last, amid the ghostly gloom

Of complicated members to the bloom Of graves, and hoary vaults, and cloister'd cells; of color, and the viral change of growth, To walk with spectres through the midnight shade, Life's holy flame and piercing sense are given, And to the screaming owl's accurseul song

And active motion speaks the temper'd soul : Artune the dreadful workings of his heart;

So moves the bird of Juno; so the steed Yet be not ye dismay'd. A gentler star

With rival ardor beats the dusty plain, Your lovely search illumincs. From the grove And faithful dogs with eager airs of joy Where Wisdom talk'd with her Athenian sons, Salute their fellows. Thus doth Beauty dwell Could my ambitious hand entwine a wreath There most conspicuous, even in outward shape, Of Plato's olive with the Mantuan bay,

Where dawns the high expression of a mind : Then should my powerful verse at once dispel By steps conducting our enraptur'd search Those monkish horrors : then in light divine To that eternal origin, whose power, Disclose the Elysian prospect, where the steps

'Through all the unbounded symmetry of things, Of those whom Nature charms, through blooming Like rays effulging from the parent Sun, walks,

This endless mixture of her charms diffus'd. Through fragrant mountains and poetic streams, Mind, mind alone, (bear witness, Earth and Heaven Amid the train of sages, heroes, bards,

The living fountains in itself contains Led by their winged Genius and the choir Of beauteous and sublime: here, hand in hand, Of laureld Science, and harmonious Art,

Sit paramount the Graces; here enthron'd, Proceed, exulting, to the eternal shrine,

Celestial Venus, with divinest airs, Where Trutb conspicuous with her sister-twins, Invites the soul to never-fading joy. The undivided partners of her sway,

Look then abroad through Nature, to the range With Good and Beauty reigns. O let not us, of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres, Lull'd by luxurious Pleasure's languid sirain, Wheeling unshaken through the void immense ; Or crouching to the frowns of Bigot-rage,

And speak, 0 man! does this capacious scene O let us not a moment pause to join

With half that kindling majesty dilate
That godlike band. And if the gracious Power Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Who first awaken'd my untutor'd song,

Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate,
Will to my invocation breathe anew

Amid the crowd of patriots; and his arm
The tuneful spirit; then through all our paths, Alofi extending, like eternal Jove,
Ne'er shall the sound of this devoted lyre

When guilt brings down the thunder, call’d aloud Be wanting; whether on the rosy mead,

On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel, When Summer smiles, to warn the melting heart And bade the father of his country hail? of Luxury's allurement; whether firm

For lo! the tyrant prostrate on the dust, Against the torrent and the stubborn hill

And Rome again is frec! Is aught so fair To urge bold Virtue's unremitted nerve,

In all the dewy landscapes of the Spring,
And wake the strong divinity of soul

In the bright eye of Hesper or the Morn,
That conquers Chance and Fate; or whether struck In Nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair
For sounds of triumph, to proclaim her toils As virtuous Friendship? as the candid blush
Upon the losy summit, round her brow

of him who strives with fortune to be just ?
To twine the wreaih of incorruptive praise ; The graceful tear that streams for others' woes?
To trace her hallow'd light through future worlds, Or the mild majesty of private life,
And bless Heaven's image in the heart of man. Where Peace with ever blooming olive crowns

Thus with a faithful aim have we presum'd, The gate ; where Honor's liberal hands effuse Adventurous, to delineate Nature's form;

Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings Whether 101 vasi, majestic pomp array'd,

of Innocence and Love protect the scene? Or drest for pleasing wonder, or serene

Once more search, undismay'd, the dark profound In Beauty's rosy smile. It now remains,

Where Nature works in secret ; view the beds Through various being's fair-proportion'd scale, of mineral treasure, and the eternal vault To trace the rising lusire of her charms,

That bounds the kipary Ocean; trace the forms

a

of atoms moving with incessant change Crouch'd like a slave. Bring all thy martial spoils, Their elemental round; behold the seeds

Thy palms, thy laurels, thy triumphal songs,
Of being, and the energy of life

Thy smiling band of arts, thy godlike sires
Kindling the mass with ever-active flame: of civil wisdom, thy heroic youth
Then to the secrets of the working mind

Warm from the schools of glory. Guide my way Attentive turn; from dim oblivion call

Through fair Lycéum's walk, the green retreats Her fleet, ideal band; and bid them, go!

Or Academus, and the thymy vale,
Break through Time's barrier, and o'ertake the hour Where, oft enchanted with Socratic sounds,
That saw the heavens created : then declare Iissus pure devolv'd his tuneful stream
If aught were found in those external scenes In gentler murmurs. From the blooming store
To move thy wonder now. For what are all of these auspicious fields, may I unblam'd.
The forms which brute, unconscious matter wears, Transplant some living blossoms to adorn
Greatness of bulk, or symmetry of parts ? My native clime: while far above the flight
Not reaching to the heart, soon feeble grows of Fancy's plame aspiring, I unlock
The superficial impulse ; dull their charms, The springs of ancient Wisdom! while I join
And satiate soon, and pall the languid eye. Thy name, thrice-honor'd! with the immortal praise
Not so the moral species, nor the powers

Of Nature, while to my compatriot youth
Of genius and design ; the ambitious mind I point the high example of thy sons,
There sees herself: by these congenial forms And tune to Attic themes the British lyre.
Touch'd and awaken'd, with intenser act
She bends each nerve, and meditates well-pleas'd
Her features in the mirror. For of all

Воок ІІ.
The inhabitants of Earth, to man alone
Creative Wisdom gave to lift his eye

The Argument.
To Truth's eternal measures; thence to frame
The sacred laws of action and of will,

The separation of the works of imagination from Discerning justice from unequal deeds,

philosophy, the cause of their abuse among the And temperance from folly. But beyond

moderns. Prospect of their reunion under the This energy of Truth, whose dictates bind

influence of public liberty. Enumeration of acAssenting reason, the benignant sire,

cidental pleasures, which increase the effect of To deck the honor'd paths of just and good,

objects delightful to the imagination. The pleaHas added bright Imagination's rays:

sures of sense. Particular circumstances of the Where Virtue, rising from the awful depth

mind. Discovery of truth. Perception of conOf Truth's mysterious bosom, doth forsake

trivance and design. Emotion of the passions. The unadorn'd condition of her birth;

All the natural passions partake of a pleasing And, dress’d by Fancy in ten thousand hues, sensation; with the final cause of this constituAssumes a various feature, to attract,

tion illustrated by an allegorical vision, and exWith charms responsive to each gazer's eye,

emplified in sorrow, pity, terror, and indignation. The hearts of men. Amid his rural walk, The ingenuous youth, whom solitude inspires When shall the laurel and the vocal string With purest wishes, from the pensive shade Resume their honors ? When shall we behold Beholds her moving, like a virgin-muse

The tuneful tongue, the Promethéan hand, That wakes her lyre to some indulgent theme Aspire to ancient praise ? Alas! how faint, Of harmony and wonder: while among

How slow, the dawn of Beauty and of Truth The herd of servile minds her strenuous form Breaks the reluctant shades of Gothic night, Indignant flashes on the patriot's eye,

Which yet involve the nations! Long they groan'd And through the rolls of memory appeals

Beneath the furies of rapacious Force ; To ancient honor, or, in act serene,

Oft as the gloomy North, with iron-swarms Yet watchful, raises the majestic sword

Tempestuous pouring from her frozen caves, Of public power, from dark ambition's reach Blasted the Italian shore, and swept the works To guard the sacred volume of the laws. of Liberty and Wisdom down the gulf

Genius of ancient Greece! whose faithful steps of all-devouring Night. As long immur'd Well-pleas'd I follow through the sacred paths In noontide darkness by the glimmering lamp, Of Nature and of Science; nurse divine Each Muse and each fair Science pin'd away Of all heroic deeds and fair desires !

The sordid hours: while foul, barbarian hands 0! let the breath of thy extended praise

Their mysteries profan'd, unstrung the lyre, Inspire my kindling bosom to the height

And chain'd the soaring pinion down to Earth. Of this untempted theme. Nor be my thoughts At last the Muses rose, and spurnd their bounds, Presumptuous counted, if amid the calm

And, wildly warbling, scatter'd, as they flow, That soothes this vernal evening into smiles, Their blooming wreaths from fair Valclusa's bowers I steal impatient from the sordid haunts

To Arno's myrtle border, and the shore
Of Strife and low Ambition, to attend

Of soft Parthenope. But still the rage
Thy sacred presence in the sylvan shade, Of dire Ambition and gigantic Power,
By their malignant footsteps ne'er profan'd. From public aims and from the busy walk
Descend, propitious ! to my favor'd eye;

Of civil Commerce, drove the bolder train
Such in thy mien, thy warm, exalted air, Of penetrating Science to the cells,
As when the Persian tyrant, foil'd and stung Where studious Ease consumes the silent hour
With shame and desperation, gnash'd his teeth In shadowy searches and unfruitful care.
To see thee rend the pageants of his throne ; Thus from their guardians torn, the tendor arts
And at the lightning of thy lifted spear

Of mimic Fancy and harmonious Joy,

To priestly domination and the lust

Than all the blandishments of sound his ear, Of lawless courts, their amiable toil

Than all of taste his tongue. Nor ever yet For three inglorious ages have resign'd,

The melting rainbow's vernal-linctur'd hues In vain reluctant: and Torquato's tongue To me have shone so pleasing, as when first Was tun'd for slavish pæans at the throne

The hand of Science pointed out the path Of tinsel pomp: and Raphael's magic hand In which the sunbeams gleaming from the west Effus'd its fair creation to enchant

Fall on the watery cloud, whose darksome veil The fond adoring herd in Latian fanes

Involves the orient; and that trickling shower To blind belief; while on their prostrate necks Piercing through every crystalline convex The sable tyrant plants his heel secure.

Of clustering dew-drops to their flight oppos'd, But now, behold! the radiant era dawns,

Recoil at length where concave all behind
When Freedom's ample fabric, fix'd at length The internal surface on each glassy orb
For endless years on Albion's happy shore Repels their forward passage into air;
In full proportion, once more shall extend

That thence direct they seek the radiant goal
To all the kindred powers of social bliss

From which their course began; and, as they strike A common mansion, a parental roof.

In different lines the gazer's obvious eye, There shall the Virtues, there shall Wisdom's train, Assume a different lustre, through the brede Their long-lost friends rejoining, as of old,

Of colors changing from the splendid rose Embrace the smiling family of Arts,

To the pale violet's dejected hue. The Muses and the Graces. Then no more

Or shall we touch that kind access of joy, Shall Vice, distracting their delicious gifts

That springs to each fair object, while we trace To aims abhorr'd, with high distaste and scorn Through all its fabric, Wisdom's arıful aim Turn from their charms the philosophic eye, Disposing every part, and gaining still The patriot-bosom ; then no more the paths By means proportion'd her benignant end? of public care or intellectual toil,

Speak, ye, the pure delight, whose lavor'd steps Alone by footsteps haughty and severe

The lamp of Science through the jealous maze In gloomy state be trod: the harmonious Muse, Of Nature guides, when haply you reveal And her persuasive sisters, then shall plant Her secret honors: whether in the sky, Their sheltering laurels o'er the black ascent, The beauteous laws of light, the central powers And scatter fowers along the rugged way. That wheel the pensile planets round the year; Arm'd with the lyre, already have we dar'd Whether in wonders of the rolling deep, To pierce divine Philosophy's retreats,

Or the rich fruits of all-sustaining earth, And teach the Muse her lore; already strove Or fine-adjusted springs of life and sense, Their long-divided honors to unite,

Ye scan the counsels of their author's hand. While tempering this deep argument we sang What, when 10 raise the meditated scene, Of Truth and Beauty. Now the same glad task The flame of passion through the struggling soul Impends; now urging our ambitious toil,

Deep-kindled, shows across that sudden blaze We hasten to recount the various springs

The object of its rapture, vast of size, or adventitious pleasure, which adjoin

With fiercer colors and a night of shade ? Their grateful influence to the prime effect What? like a storm from their capacious bed Of objects grand or beauteous, and enlarge The sounding seas o'erwhelming, when the might The complicated joy. The sweets of sense, of these eruptions, working from the depth Do they not oft with kind accession flow,

Of man's strong apprehension, shakes his frame To raise harmonious Fancy's native charm? Even to the base ; from every naked sense So while we taste the fragrance of the rose, Of pain or pleasure dissipating all Glows not her blush the fairer? While we view Opinion's feeble coverings, and the veil Amid the noontide walk a limpid rill

Spun from the cobweb fashion of the times Gush through the trickling herbage, to the thirst To hide the feeling heart? Then Nature speaks or Summer yielding the delicious draught Her genuine language, and the words of men, Of cool refreshment; o'er the mossy brink

Big with the very motion of their souls, Shines not the surface clearer, and the waves Declare with what accumulated force With sweeter music murmur as they flow? The impetuous nerve of passion urgos on Nor this alone; the various lot of life

The native weight and energy of things. Oft from external circumstance assumes

Yet more: her honors where nor beauty claims A moments disposition to rejoice

Nor shows of good the thirsty sense allure, In those delights which at a different hour

From Passion's power alone our nature holds Would pass unheeded. Fair the face of Spring, Essential pleasure. Passion's fierce illapse When rural songs and odors wake the Morn, Rouses the mind's whole fabric; with supplies To every eye; but how much more to his Of daily impulse keeps the elastic powers Round whom the bed of sickness long diffus'd Intensely pois’d, and polishes anew Its melancholy gloom! how doubly fair,

By that collision all the fine machine : When first with fresh-born vigor he inhales Else rust would rise, and foulness, by degrees The balmy breeze, and feels the blessed Sun Encumbering, choke at last what Heaven design di Warm at his bosom, from the springs of life For ceaseless motion and a round of toil. Chasing oppressive damps and languid pain !

-But say, does every passion thus lo man Or shall I mention, where celestial Truth Administer delight? That name indeed Her awful light discloses, to bestow

Becomes the rosy breath of Love ; becomes A more majestic pomp on Beauty's frame ? The radiant smiles of Joy, the applauding hand For man loves knowledge, and the beams of Truth Of Admiration : but the bitter shower More welcome touch his understanding's eye, That Sorrow sheds upon a brother's grave,

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But the dumb palsy of nocturnal Fear,

“. Vain are thy thoughts, O child of mortal Or those consuming fires that gnaw the heart

birth! Of panting Indignation, find we there

And impotent thy tongue. Is thy short span To move delight ?—Then listen while my tongue Capacious of this universal frame ? The unalter'd will of Heaven with faithful awe Thy wisdom all-sufficient ? Thou, alas ! Reveals; what old Harmodius, wont to teach Dost thou aspire to judge between the Lord My early age; Harmodius, who had weigh'd of Nature and his works? to list thy voice Within his learned mind whate'er the schools Against the sovereign order he decreed, Of Wisdom, or thy lonely-whispering voice, All good and lovely? to blaspheme the bands O faithful Nature ! dictate of the laws

of tenderness innate, and social love,
Which govern and support this mighty frame Holiest of things! by which the general orb
Of universal being. Oft the hours

Of being, as by adamantine links,
From morn to eve have stolen unmark'd away, Was drawn to perfect union, and sustain'd
While mute attention hung upon his lips,

From everlasting? Hast thou felt the pangs
As thus the sage his awful talc began.

or softening sorrow, of indignant zeal, “ 'Twas in the windings of an ancient wood, So grievous to the soul, as thence to wish When spotless youth with solitude resigns

The ties of Nature broken from thy frame;
To sweet philosophy the studious day,

That so thy selfish, unrelenting heart
What time pale Autumn shades the silent eve, Might cease to mourn its lot, no longer then
Musing I rov'd. Of good and evil much,

The wretched heir of evils not its own ?
And much of mortal man, my thought revolv'd; O fair benevolence of generous minds !
When starting full on Fancy's gushing eye O man by Nature form'd for all mankind!"
The mournful image of Parthenia's fate,

· He spoke ; abash'd and silent I remain'd, That hour, O long belov’d and long deplor’d ! As conscious of my tongue's offence, and aw'd When blooming youth, nor gentlest Wisdom's arts, Before his presence, though my secret soul Nor Hymen's honors gather'd for thy brow, Disdain'd the imputation. On the ground Nor all thy lover's, all thy father's tears,

I fix'd my eyes ; till from his airy couch Avail'd to snatch thee from the cruel grave; He stoop'd sublime, and touching with his hand Thy agonizing looks, thy last farewell,

My dazzling forehead, Raise thy sight,' he cried, Struck to the inmost feeling of my soul

• And let thy sense convince thy erring tongue.' As with the hand of Death. At once the shade “I look’d, and lo! the former scene was chang'd More horrid nodded o'er me, and the winds For verdant alleys and surrounding trees, With hoarser murmuring shook the branches. Dark A solitary prospect, wide and wild, As midnight storms, the scene of human things Rush'd on my senses. 'Twas an horrid pile Appear'd before me: deserts, burning sands, Of hills, with many a shaggy forest mix'd, Where the parch'd adder dies; the frozen south, With many a sable cliff and glittering stream. And Desolation blasting all the west

Aloft, recumbent o'er the hanging ridge, With rapine and with murder : tyrant Power The brown woods wav'd; while ever-trickling Here sits enthron'd with blood; the baleful charms

springs Of Superstition there infect the skies,

Wash'd from the naked roots of oak and pine And turn the Sun to horror. Gracious Heaven! The crumbling soil ; and still at every fall What is the life of man? Or cannot these, Down the steep windings of the channeld rock, Not these portents thy awful will suffice ?

Remurmuring rush'd the congregated floods That, propagated thus beyond their scope,

With hoarser inundation ; till at last They rise to act their cruelties anew

They reach'd a grassy plain, which from the skirts In my afflicted bosum, thus decreed

Of that high desert spread her verdant lap, The universal sensitive of pain,

And drank the gushing moisture, where, confin'd The wretched heir of evils not its own!

In one smooth current, o'er the lilied vale “ Thus I impatient; when, at once effus’d, Clearer than glass it flow'd. Autumnal spoils, A flashing torrent of celestial day

Luxuriant spreading to the rays of morn, Burst through the shadowy void. With slow descent Blush'd o'er the cliffs, whose half-encircling mound A purple cloud came floating through the sky, As in a sylvan theatre inclos'd And, pois'd at length within the circling trees, That flowery level. On the river's brink Hung obvious to my view ; till opening wide I spied a fair pavilion, which diffus'd Its lucid orb, a more than human form

Its Moating umbrage 'mid the silver shade Emerging leand majestic o'er my head,

of osiers. Now the western Sun reveal'd And instant thunder shook the conscious grove. Between two parting cliffs his golden orb, Then melted into air the liquid cloud,

And pour'd across the shadow of the hills, Then all the shining vision stood reveal'd. On rocks and floods, a yellow stream of light A wreath of palm his ample forehead bound, That cheer'd the solemn scene. My listening powers And o'er his shoulder, mantling to his knee, Were aw'd, and every thought in silence hung, Flow'd the transparent robe, around his waist And wondering expectation. Then the voice Collected with a radiant zone of gold

Of that celestial power, the mystic show Ethereal : there in mystic signs engravid,

Declaring, thus my deep attention call'u. I read his office high, and sacred name,

“ •Inhabitants of Earth, to whom is given Genius of human-kind. Appall'd I gaz'd

The gracious ways of Providence to learn, The godlike presence ; for athwart his brow Receive my sayings with a stedfast earDispleasure, temper'd with a mild concern, Know then, the sovereign Spirit of the world, Look'd down reluctant on me, and his words Though, self-collected from elerual time, Like distant thunders broke the murmuring air. Within his own deep essence he beheld