The seasons; to which is added the life of the author

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Page 215 - The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills; And let me catch it as I muse along. Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound; Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale; and thou, majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voice Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. So roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts, Whose breath...
Page 182 - Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man His annual visit. Half afraid, he first Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is! Till, more familiar grown, the table crumbs Attract his slender feet.
Page 213 - THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of Thee.
Page 165 - Conceal'd, and fattens with the richest sap : These are not wanting ; nor the milky drove, Luxuriant, spread o'er all the lowing vale ; Nor bleating mountains ; nor the chide of streams, And hum of bees...
Page 168 - This is the life which those who fret in guilt, And guilty cities, never knew ; the life. Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt, When angels dwelt, and GOD himself, with man...
Page 185 - Ah little think they, while they dance along, How many feel, this very moment, death, And all the sad variety of pain. How many sink in the devouring flood, Or more devouring flame ! how many bleed, By shameful variance betwixt man and man. How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms, Shut from the common air, and common use Of their own limbs...
Page 126 - A native grace Sat fair-proportion'd on her polish'd limbs, Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire, Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is when unadorn'd adorn'd the most.
Page 185 - Ah little think the gay licentious proud, Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround ; They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, And wanton, often cruel, riot waste ; Ah little think they, while they dance along, How many feel, this very moment, death, And all the sad variety of pain.
Page 185 - With friendship, peace, and contemplation join'd, How many, rack'd with honest passions, droop In deep retir'd distress. How many stand Around the death-bed of their dearest friends, And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills, That one incessant struggle render life, One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate...
Page xiii - He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius ; he looks round on Nature and on Life with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet ; the eye that distinguishes, in every thing presented to its view, whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute.

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