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النشر الإلكتروني

SECTION XVIII.

The Cuckoo.

HAIL beauteous stranger of the wood,
Attendant on the Spring!

Now heav'n repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.
Soon as the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear;
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year P
Delightful visitant! with thee

I hail the time of flow'rs,

When heav'n is fill'd with music sweet
Of birds among the bow'rs.

The school-boy wand'ring in the wood,
To pull the flow'rs so gay,

Starts, thy curious voice to hear,
And imitates thy lay.

Soon as the pea puts on the bloom,
Thou fly'st thy vocal vale,
An annual guest in other lands,
Another spring to hail.

Sweet bird! thy bow'r is ever green,

Thy sky is ever clear;

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,

·!

No winter in thy year!

O could I fly, I'd fly with thee:
We'd make, with social wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring.

SECTION XIX.

Day. A Pastoral in three parts.
Morning.

In the barn the tenant cock,

Close to Partlet perch'd on high; Briskly crows. (the shepherd's clock !) Jocund that the morning's nigh.

Swiftly, from the mountain's brow,

Shadows nurs'd by night retire;

LOGAN.

And the peeping sunbeam, now
Paints with gold the village spire.
Philomel forsakes the thorn,

Plaintive where she prates at night:
And the lark, to meet the morn,
Soars beyond the shepherd's sight.
From the low roof'd cottage ridge,
See the chatt'ring swallow spring;
Darting through the one arch'd bridge,
Quick she dips her dappled wing.
Now the pine tree's waving top
Gently greets the morning gale:
Kidlings, now, begin to crop
Daisies, on the dewy dale.
From the balmly sweets uncloy'd,
(Restless till her task be done)
Now the busy bee's employ'd,
Sipping dew before the sun.

ling through the crevic'd rock,
Where the limpid stream distils,
Sweet refreshment waits the flock,
When 'tis sun-drove from the hills.
Collin's for the promis'd corn

(Ere the harvest hopes are ripe)
Anxious; whilst the huntsman's horn,
Boldly sounding, drowns his pipe.
Sweet-O sweet, the warbling throng,
On the white emblossom'd spray!
Nature's universal song

Echoes to the rising day.

Noon.

FERVID on the glitt'ring flood,
Now the noontide radiance glows:
Drooping o'er its infant bud,

Not a dew drop's left the rose,
By the brook the shepherd dines,
From the fierce meridian heat,
Shelter'd by the branching pines,
Pendent o'er his grassy seat.

Now the flock forsakes the glade, Where uncheck'd the sunbeams fall, Sure to find a pleasing shade

By the ivy'd abbey wall. Echo, in her airy round,

O'er the river rock and hill, Cannot catch a single sound,

Save the clack of yonder mill.
Cattle court the zephyr's bland,
Where the streamlet wanders cool,
Or with languid silence stand
Midway in the marshy pool.
But from mountain, dell, or stream,
Not a flutt'ring zephyr springs;
Fearful lest the noontide beam
Scorch its soft, its silken wings.
Not a leaf has leave to stir,
Nature's lull'd, serene, and still !
Quiet e'en the shepherd's cur.
Sleeping on the heath clad hill.
Languid is the landscape round,
Till the fresh descending show't,
Grateful to the thirsty ground,
Raises ev'ry fainting flow'r.
Now the hill, the hedge, are green,
Now the warbler's throat's in tune;
Blithsome is the verdant scene,
Brighten❜d by the means of Noon!
Evening.

O'ER the heath the heifer strays
Free, (the furrow'd task is done ;)
Now the village windows blaze,
Burnish'd by the setting sun.

Now he sets behind the hill
Sinking from a golden sky;
Can the pencil's mimic skill
Copy the refulgent dye?
Trudging as the ploughmen go,

(To the smoking hamlet bound,) Giant like their shadows grow, Lengthen'd o'er the level ground.

Where the rising forest spreads
Shelter for the lordly dome!
To their high built airy beds,
See the rooks returning home!
As the lark with vary'd tune,
Carols to the evening loud;
Mark the mild resplendent moon,
Breaking through a parted cloud!
Now the hermit howlet peeps

From the barn or twisted brake;
And the blue mist slowly creeps,
Curling on the silver lake.
As the trout in speckled pride,
Playful from its bosom springs;
To the banks a ruffled tide
Verges in successive rings.
Tripping through the silken grass
O'er the path divided dale,
Mark the rose complexion'd lass
With her well pois'd milking pail
Linnets with unnumber'd notes,
And the cuckoo bird with two,
Tuning sweet their mellow throats,
Bid the setting sun adieu.

SECTION XX.

The Order of Nature.

CUNNINGHAM.

SEE thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began;
Nature's ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing. On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation roll,

Alike essential to the amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth, unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless thro' the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature trembles to the throne of God.
All this dread ORDER break-for whom? for thee?
Vile worm! Oh madness! pride! impiety!

What if the foot ordain'd the dust to tread,

Or hand to toil, aspire to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear, repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another in this gen'ral frame:
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing MIND OF ALL ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul:
That chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Live thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt scraph that adores and burns;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Cease then. nor ORDER imperfection name:
Our proper
bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit. In this or any other sphere

Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear :
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;

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