Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him;
Breathe your ftill fong into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth afleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye conftellations, while your angels ftrike,
Amid the fpangled fky, the filver lyre.
Great fource of day! beft image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On nature write with every beam His praise.
The thunder rolls: be hufh'd the proftrate world;
While cloud to cloud returns the folemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye moffy rocks,
Retain the found: the broad refponfive lowe,
Ye vallies, raife; for the Great Shepherd reigns;
And his unfuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless fong
Burft from the groves! and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweeteft of birds! fweet Philomela, charm

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The listening shades, and teach the night His praise. 80
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation fmiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in fwarming cities vast,
Affembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-refounding voice, oft-breaking clear,
At folemn pauses, through the fwelling base;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardor rife to heaven.

VOL. I.

85

Or

Or if you rather chufe the rural shade,

And find a fane in every fecret grove;

There let the fhepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting feraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still fing the God of Seasons, as they roll.
For me,
when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the bloffom blows, the fummer-ray
Ruffets the plain, infpiring Autumn gleams;
Or Winter rises in the blackening eaft;

Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat.

Should fate command me to the fartheft verge
Of the green earth, to diftant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to fong; where first the fun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his fetting beam
Flames on th' Atlantic ifles; 'tis nought to me:
Since God is ever prefent, ever felt,

In the void waste as in the city full;

And where He vital breathes, there must be joy.
When ev'n at last the folemn hour shall come,
And wing my myftic flight to future worlds,
I chearful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rifing wonders fing: I cannot go
Where Univerfal Love not fmiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their fons;
From feeming evil ftill educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progreffion. But I lofe

Myself in Him, in Light ineffable;

Come then, expreffive Silence, mufe His praife.

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THE

THE

CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

ΑΝ

ALLEGORICAL POEM.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THIS poem being writ in the manner of Spenfer, the obfolete words, and a fimplicity of diction in fome of the lines, which borders on the ludicrous, were neceffary, to make the imitation more perfect. And the style of that admirable poet, as well as the measure in which he wrote, are, as it were, appropriated by cuftom to all allegorical poems writ in our language; just as in French the ftile of Marot, who lived under Francis I. has been used in tales, and familiar epiftles, by the politeft writers of the age of Louis XIV.

EXPLANATION of the OBSOLETE WORDS ufed in this Poem.

Rchimage-the chief Fays-fairies.

or greatest of magici

Dan-a word prefixed to Libbard-leopard.

Drowfy-head-drowsiness. Lithe-loofe, lax.

Eftfoons-immediately, of Moe-more.