AIR morn afcends: fresh zephyr's breath
Blows liberal o'er yon bloomy heath;
Where, fown profufely, herb and flower,
Of balmy fmell, of healing power,
Their fouls in fragrant dews exhale,
And breathe fresh life in every gale.
Here spreads a green expanfe of plains,
Where, fweetly-penfive, Silence reigns:
And there, at utmost stretch of eye,
A mountain fades into the sky;
While winding round, diffus'd and deep,
A river rolls with founding sweep.
Of human art no traces near,
I feem alone with Nature here!
Here are thy walks, O facred HEALTH! The Monarch's blifs, the Beggar's wealth; The feasoning of all good below;
The fovereign friend in joy or woe.
O Thou, moft courted, moft defpis'd,
And but in absence duly priz❜d!
Power of the foft and rofy face!
The vivid pulfe, the vermil grace,
The fpirits when they gayest shine,
Youth, beauty, pleasure, all are thine!
O fun of life! whofe heavenly ray
Lights up, and chears, our various day,
The turbulence of hopes and fears,
The storm of fate, the cloud of years,
Till Nature with thy parting light,
Reposes late in Death's calm night:
Fled from the trophy'd roofs of state,
Abodes of fplendid pain, and hate;
Fled from the couch, where, in fweet fleep,
Hot Riot would his anguish steep,
But toffes thro' the midnight fhade,
Of death, of life, alike afraid;
For ever fled to fhady cell,
Where Temperance, where the Muses dwell;
Thou oft art seen, at early dawn,
Slow-pacing o'er the breezy lawn :
Or on the brow of mountain high,
In filence feafting ear and eye,
With fong and profpect, which abound
From birds, and woods and waters round.
But when the fun, with noon-tide ray,
Flames forth intolerable day;
While Heat fits fervent on the plain,
With Thirst and Languor in his train ;
(All nature fickening in the blaze)
Thou, in the wild and woody maze,
That clouds the vale with umbrage deep,
Impendent from the neighbouring steep,
Wilt find betimes a calm retreat,
Where breathing Coolness has her feat.
There, plung'd amid the fhadows brown,
Imagination lays him down.
Attentive in his airy mood,
To every murmur of the wood :
The bee in yonder flowery nook;
The chidings of the headlong brook;
The green leaf fhivering in the gale;
The warbling hill, the lowing vale;
The diftant woodman's echoing ftroke;
The thunder of the falling oak.
From thought to thought in vifion led,
He holds high converse with the Dead ;
Sages or Poets. See, they rife!
And shadowy skim before his eyes.
Hark! Orpheus ftrikes the lyre again,
That foften'd favages to men:
Lo! Socrates, the Sent of Heaven,
To whom its moral will was given.
Fathers and friends of human kind!
They form'd the nations, or refin'd,
With all that mends the head and heart, Enlightening truth, adorning art.
Thus mufing in the folemn shade At once the founding breeze was laid: And Nature, by the unknown law, Shook deep with reverential awe. Dumb filence grew upon the hour; A browner night involv'd the bower : When iffuing from the inmoft wood, Appear'd fair Freedom's GENIUS good. O Freedom! fovereign boon of Heaven; Great Charter, with our being given; For which the patriot, and the fage, Have plan'd, have bled thro' every age! High privilege of human race, Beyond a mortal monarch's grace : Who could not give, who cannot claim, What but from God immediate came!
HE Prince of all the feather'd kind,
That with spread wings out-flies the wind,
And tow'rs far out of human fight
To view the shining orb of light:
'This Royal Bird, tho' brave and great,
And armed strong for ftern debate,
No tyrant is, but condescends
Oft-times to treat inferior friends.
One day at his command did flock
To his high palace on a rock,
The courtiers of ilk various fize
That swiftly swim in chryftal fkies;
* Written before the year 1600.
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