Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright. 320
O'er these, but far beyond, (a spacious map
Of hill and valley interposed between,)
The Ouse, dividing the well-water'd land,
Now glitters in the sun, and now retires,
As bashful, yet impatient to be seen.
Hence the declivity is sharp and short,
And such the re-ascent; between them weeps
A little Naiad her impoverish'd urn
All summer long, which winter fills again.
The folded gates would bar my progress now,
But that the Lord 25 of this enclosed demesne,
Communicative of the good he owns,
Admits me to a share: the guiltless eye
Commits no wrong, nor wastes what it enjoys.
Refreshing change! where now the blazing sun? 335
By short transition we have lost his glare,
And stepp'd at once into a cooler clime.
Ye fallen avenues! once more I mourn
Your fate unmerited, once more rejoice
That yet a remnant of your race survives.
How airy and how light the graceful arch,
Yet aweful as the consecrated roof 26
25 See the foregoing note (19).
26 Accordant with the theory commonly ascribed to Bishop Warburton, but which may be found in older Stukeley
"The cloysters in this Cathedral (at Gloucester) are beautiful beyond any thing I ever saw,... for a gallery, library, or the like, it is the best manner of building, because the idea of it is taken from a walk of trees, whose branching heads are curiously imitated by the roof."-Itinerarium Curiosum, p. 68.
Why should we crave a hallowed spot?
An altar is in each man's cot,
Reechoing pious anthems! while beneath
The chequer'd earth seems restless as a flood
Brush'd by the wind. So sportive is the light
Shot through the boughs, it dances as they dance,
Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick,
And darkening and enlightening, as the leaves
Play wanton, every moment, every spot.
And now with nerves new-braced and spirits cheer'd
We tread the wilderness, whose well-roll'd walks
With curvature of slow and easy sweep,—
Deception innocent,-give ample space
To narrow bounds. The grove receives us next;
Between the upright shafts of whose tall elms
We may
discern the thresher at his task.
Thump after thump, resounds the constant flail,
That seems to swing uncertain, and yet falls
Full on the destined ear. Wide flies the chaff,
The rustling straw sends up a frequent mist
Of atoms sparkling in the noon-day beam.
Come hither, ye that press your beds of down
And sleep not,see him sweating o'er his bread
Before he eats it.-'Tis the primal" curse,
A church in every grove that spreads
Its living roof above our heads.
Wordsworth. Labourer's Hymns.
Here aged trees Cathedral walks compose.
have given the hint to Warburton.
27 O, my offence is rank, it smells to Heaven, It hath the primal eldest curse upon it.
But soften'd into mercy; made the pledge
Of cheerful days, and nights without a groan.
By ceaseless action, all that is subsists.
Constant rotation of the unwearied wheel
That nature rides upon, maintains her health,
Her beauty, her fertility. She dreads
An instant's pause, and lives but while she moves.
Its own revolvency upholds the world.
Winds from all quarters agitate the air,
And fit the limpid element for use,
Else noxious: oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams
All feel the freshening impulse, and are cleansed
By restless undulation. Even the oak
Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm;
He seems indeed indignant, and to feel
The impression of the blast with proud disdain,
Frowning as if in his unconscious arm
But the monarch owes
His firm stability to what he scorns,
More fixt below, the more disturb'd above.
The law by which all creatures else are bound,
Binds man the lord of all. Himself derives
No mean advantage from a kindred cause,
Glanced on the ground, with labour I must earn
My bread-What harm? idleness had been worse.
Par. Lost, x. 1053.
By that collision all the fine machine:
Else rust would rise, and foulness by degrees
Incumbering, choke at last what Heaven design'd
For ceaseless motion and a round of toil.
Akenside. Pleasures of Imagination, ii, 161.
From strenuous toil his hours of sweetest ease.
The sedentary stretch their lazy length
When custom bids, but no refreshment find,
For none they need: the languid eye, the cheek
Deserted of its bloom, the flaccid, shrunk,
And wither'd muscle, and the vapid soul,
Reproach their owner with that love of rest
To which he forfeits even the rest he loves 28.
Not such the alert and active. Measure life
By its true worth, the comforts it affords,
And theirs alone seems worthy of the name.
Good health, and its associate in the most,
Good temper; spirits prompt to undertake,
And not soon spent, though in an arduous task;
The powers of fancy and strong thought are theirs ;
Even age itself seems privileged in them
With clear exemption from its own defects.
A sparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front
The veteran shows, and gracing a grey beard
With youthful smiles, descends towards the
Sprightly, and old almost without decay.
Like a coy maiden, ease, when courted most,
Farthest retires,-an idol, at whose shrine
Who oftenest sacrifice are favour'd least.
Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yawn confess
The pains and penalties of idleness.
With anxious care they labour to be glad,
What bodily fatigue is half so bad?
The love of Nature, and the scenes she draws
Is Nature's dictate. Strange! there should be found
Who self-imprison'd in their proud saloons,
Renounce the odours of the open field
For the unscented fictions of the loom;
Who satisfied with only pencil'd scenes,
Prefer to the performance of a God
The inferior wonders of an artist's hand.
Lovely indeed the mimic works of art,
But Nature's works far lovelier.
None more admires the painter's magic skill,
Who shows me that which I shall never see 29,
Conveys a distant country into mine,
And throws Italian light on English walls.
But imitative strokes can do no more
Than please the eye, sweet Nature every sense 30.
The air salubrious of her lofty hills,
The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales
And music of her woods,-no works of man
May rival these; these all bespeak a power
29 Who shows me that which I shall never see.
A liberty of expression justified by high authority-
So hand in hand they pass'd, the loveliest pair
That ever since in love's embraces met,
Adam the goodliest man of men since born
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.
In the lowest deep a lower deep. Ibid. iv. 76.
Et ambigua de Vespasiano fama: solusque omnium ante se Principum, in melius mutatus est.--Tacitus Hist. i. 50.
30 For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense.
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