Till time has stolen away the slighted good, Is cause of half the poverty we feel, And makes the world the wilderness it is. The few that pray at all pray oft amiss,
And, seeking grace to improve the prize they hold, Would urge a wiser suit than asking more
The night was winter in his roughest mood;
The morning sharp and clear.
But now at noon Upon the southern side of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast, The season smiles, resigning all its rage,
And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue Without a cloud, and white without a speck The dazzling splendour of the scene below. Again the harmony comes o'er the vale;
And through the trees I view the embattled tower Whence all the music. I again perceive
The soothing influence of the wafted strains, And settle in soft musings as I tread
The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms, Whose outspread branches overarch the glade. The roof, though moveable through all its length As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed, And, intercepting in their silent fall
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me. No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. The redbreast warbles still, but is content
With slender notes, and more than half suppress'd: Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice, That tinkle in the wither'd leaves below. Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, Charms more than silence. Meditation here May think down hours to moments. Here the heart May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books. Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, Have ofttimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds, Till smooth'd, and squared, and fitted to its place, Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. Books are not seldom talismans and spells, By which the magic art of shrewder wits Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall'd. Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment hoodwink'd. Some the style Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds Of error leads them, by a tune entranced. While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear The insupportable fatigue of thought,
And swallowing therefore without pause or choice The total grist unsifted, husks and all. But trees, and rivulets whose rapid course
Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer,
And sheepwalks populous with bleating lambs, And lanes, in which the primrose ere her time Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root,
Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth, Not shy, as in the world, and to be won By slow solicitation, seize at once
The roving thought, and fix it on themselves. What prodigies can power divine perform More grand than it produces year by year, And all in sight of inattentive man? Familiar with the effect, we slight the cause, And, in the constancy of nature's course, The regular return of genial months,
And renovation of a faded world,
See nought to wonder at.
As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race
Of the undeviating and punctual sun,
How would the world admire! but speaks it less An agency divine, to make him know
His moment when to sink and when to rise,
age, than to arrest his course?
All we behold is miracle; but, seen
So duly, all is miracle in vain.
Where now the vital energy that moved,
While summer was, the pure and subtle lymph Through the imperceptible meandering veins
Of leaf and flower? It sleeps; and the icy touch Of unprolific winter has impress'd
A cold stagnation on the intestine tide.
But let the months go round, a few short months. And all shall be restored. These naked shoots, Barren as lances, among which the wind Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes, Shall put their graceful foliage on again, And, more aspiring, and with ampler spread, Shall boast new charms, and more than they have lost.
Then each, in its peculiar honours clad, Shall publish, even to the distant eye, Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich In streaming gold; syringa, ivory pure; The scentless and the scented rose; this red, And of an humbler growth, the other* tall, And throwing up into the darkest gloom Of neighbouring cypress, or more sable yew, Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf That the wind severs from the broken wave; The lilac, various in array, now white,
Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set With purple spikes pyramidal, as if,
Studious of ornament, yet unresolved
Which hue she most approved, she chose them all : Copious of flowers the woodbine, pale and wan, But well compensating her sickly looks With never-cloying odours, early and late; Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm
Of flowers, like flies clothing her slender rods, That scarce a leaf appears; mezereon too,
Though leafless, well attired, and thick beset With blushing wreaths, investing every spray ; Althea with the purple eye; the broom, Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloy'd, Her blossoms; and luxuriant above all
The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, The deep dark green of whose unvarnish'd leaf Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more The bright profusion of her scatter'd stars.— These have been, and these shall be in their day, And all this uniform, uncolour'd scene
Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load,
And flush into variety again.
From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, Is Nature's progress, when she lectures man In heavenly truth; evincing, as she makes The grand transition, that there lives and works A soul in all things, and that soul is God. The beauties of the wilderness are his, That make so gay the solitary place,
Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms, That cultivation glories in, are his.
He sets the bright procession 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, Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ, Uninjured, with inimitable art;
And, ere one flowery season fades and dies, Designs the blooming wonders of the next.
« PreviousContinue » |