Whose work is without labour; whose designs
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts;

And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.
Him blind antiquity profan'd, not ferv'd,
With felf-taught rites, and under various names,
Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan,

And Flora, and Vertumnus; peopling earth
With tutelary goddeffes and gods

That were not; and commending, as they would,
To each some province, garden, field, or grove.
But all are under one. One spirit-His

Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding browsRules univerfal nature. Not a flow'r

But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain,
Of his unrivall'd pencil. He infpires

Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,
In grains as countless as the fea-fide fands,

The forms with which he fprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds

Of flavour or of fcent in fruit or flow'r,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the fun,
Prompts with remembrance of a prefent God!
His prefence, who made all fo fair, perceiv'd,
Makes all ftill fairer. As with him no scene
Is dreary, fo with him all feafons please.
Though winter had been none, had man been true,
And earth be punish'd for its tenant's fake,

Yet not in vengeance; as this fmiling sky,

So foon fucceeding fuch an angry night,

And these diffolving fnows, and this clear ftream
Recov'ring faft its liquid mufic, prove.

Who then, that has a mind well ftrung and tun'd

To contemplation, and within his reach

A scene fo friendly to his fav'rite task,

Would waste attention at the chequer'd board,

His hoft of wooden warriors to and fro

Marching and counter-marching, with an eye

As fixt as marble, with a forehead ridg'd

And furrow'd into storms, and with a hand
Trembling, as if eternity were hung

In balance on his conduct of a pin ?-
Nor envies he aught more their idle fport,
Who pant with application mifapplied

To trivial toys, and, pushing iv'ry balls
Across a velvet level, feel a joy

Akin to rapture when the bawble finds

Its deftin'd goal, of difficult access.

Nor deems he wifer him, who gives his noon
To mifs, the mercer's plague, from shop to fhop
Wand'ring, and litt'ring with unfolded filks

The polifh'd counter, and approving none,
Or promifing with fimiles to call again.-

Nor him, who by his vanity feduc'd,

And footh'd into a dream that he difcerns

'The diff'rence of a Guido from a daub,

Fréquents the crowded auction: ftation'd there

As duly as the Langford of the fhow,

With glass at eye, and catalogue in hand,
And tongue accomplish'd in the fulfome cant
And pedantry that coxcombs learn with ease;
Oft as the price-deciding hammer falls
He notes it in his book, then raps his box,
Swears 'tis a bargain, rails at his hard fate
That he has let it pass-but never bids!

Here, unmolefted, through whatever fign The fun proceeds, I wander. Neither mist, Nor freezing fky nor fultry, checking me, Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy, Ev'n in the fpring and play-time of the year, That calls th' unwonted villager abroad With all her little ones, a fportive train, To gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick A cheap but wholefome fallad from the brook, These fhades are all my own, The tim'rous hare,

Grown fo familiar with her frequent gueft,

Scarce fhuns me; and the stock-dove, unalarm'd,

Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor fufpends

His long love-ditty for my near approach.

Drawn from his refuge in fome lonely elm
That age or injury has hollow'd deep,

Where, on his bed of wool and matted leaves,
He has outflept the winter, ventures forth
To frifk awhile, and bask in the warm fun,

The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play:
He fees me, and at once, swift as a bird,

Afcends the neigb'ring beach; there whisks his brush,
And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud,
With all the prettinefs of feign'd alarm,
And anger infignificantly fierce,

The heart is hard in nature, and unfit
For human fellowship, as being void
Of fympathy, and therefore dead alike

To love and friendship both, that is not pleas'd