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Healthful in heart and look; clear Chastity,
With blushes reddening as fhe moves along,
Disorder'd at the deep regard she draws;
Rough Industry; Activity untir'd,
With copious life inform'd, and all awake;
While in the radiant front, superior shines
That first paternal virtue, Public Zeal;
Who throws o'er all an equal wide survey;
And, ever musing on the common weal,

Still labours glorious with some great design.

Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees,

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Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds 1620 Assembled gay, a richly-gorgeous train,

In all their pomp attend his setting throne.

Air, earth, and ocean smile immense. And now,

As if his weary chariot sought the bowers

Of Amphitritè, and her tending nymphs,

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(So Grecian fable sung) he dips his orb;

Now half-immers'd; and now a golden curve
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.
FOR ever running an enchanted round,
Passes the day, deceitful, vain, and void;
As fleets the vision o'er the formful brain,
This moment hurrying wild th' impassion'd soul,
The next in nothing lost. 'Tis so to him,

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The dreamer of this earth, an idle blank;

A sight of horror to the cruel wretch,

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Who all day long in sordid pleasure roll'd,

Himself an useless load, has squander'd vile,

Upon his scoundrel train, what might have cheer'd
A drooping family of modest worth.

But to the generous still-improving mind,

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That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy,
Diffusing kind beneficence around,

Boastless, as now descends the silent dew;

To him the long review of order'd life
Is inward rapture, only to be felt.

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CONFESS'd from yonder slow-extinguish'd All ether softening, sober Evening takes Her wonted station in the middle air;

clouds,

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A thousand shadows at her beck. First this
She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye
Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still,
In circle following circle, gathers round,
To close the face of things. A fresher gale
Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream,
Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn; 1655
While the quail clamours for his running mate.
Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,
A whitening shower of vegetable down
Amusive floats. The kind impartial care

Of Nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed 1660
Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year,

From field to field the feather'd seeds she wings.

His folded flock secure, the shepherd home Hies, merry-hearted: and by turns relieves The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail ; The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart, Unknowing what the joy-mixt anguish means, Sincerely loves, by that best language shewn Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds.

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Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height, 1670 And valley sunk, and unfrequented; where

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At fall of eve the fairy people throng,
In various game, and revelry, to pass
The summer-night, as village-stories tell.
But far about they wander from the grave
Of him, whom his ungentle fortune urg'd
Against his own sad breast to lift the hand
Of impious violence. The lonely tower
Is also shun'd; whose mournful chambers hold,
So night-struck Fancy dreams, the yelling ghoft. 1680
AMONG the crooked lanes, on every hedge,
The glow-worm lights his gem; and, thro' the dark,
A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields
The world to Night; not in her winter-robe

Of massy Stygian woof, but loose array'd

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In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray,

Glanc'd from th' imperfect surfaces of things,
Flings half an image on the straining eye;

While wavering woods, and villages, and streams,

And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retain'd 1690
Th' ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene;
Uncertain if beheld. Sudden to heaven

Thence weary vision turns; where, leading soft
The silent hours of love, with purest ray

Sweet Venus shines; and from her genial rise, 1695
When day-light sickens till it springs afresh,

Unrival'd reigns, the fairest lamp of night.

As thus th' effulgence tremulous I drink,

With cherish'd gaze, the lambent lightnings shoot Across the sky; or horizontal dart

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In wondrous shapes; by fearful murmuring crowds
Portentous deem'd. Amid the radiant orbs,

That more than deck, that animate the sky,
The life-infusing suns of other worlds;
Lo! from the dread immensity of space
Returning, with accelerated course,
The rushing comet to the sun descends;
And as he sinks below the shading earth,
With awful train projected o'er the heavens,

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The guilty nations tremble. But, above

Those superstitious horrors that enflave

The fond sequacious herd, to mystic faith

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And blind amazement prone; the enlighten'd few
Whose godlike minds philosophy exalts,
The glorious stranger hail. They feel a joy
Divinely great; they in their powers exult,

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That wondrous force of thought, which mounting

spurns

This dusky spot, and measures all the sky;
While, from his far excursion thro' the wilds

Of barren ether, faithful to his time,

They see the blazing wonder rise anew,
In secming terror clad, but kindly bent
To work the will of all-sustaining Love;
From his huge vapoury train perhaps to shake
Reviving moisture on the numerous orbs,
Thro' which his long ellipfis winds; perhaps
To lend new fuel to declining suns,

To light up worlds, and feed th' eternal fire.

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WITH thee, serene PHILOSOPHY, with thee,'
And thy bright garland, let me crown my song! 1730
Effusive source of evidence, and truth!

A lustre shedding o'er th' ennobled mind,
Stronger than summer-noon; and pure as that,
Whose mild vibrations soothe the parted soul,

New to the dawning of celestial day.

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Hence thro' her nourish'd powers, enlarg'd by thee,

She springs aloft, with elevated pride,

Above the tangling mass of low desires,

That bind the fluttering crowd; and, angel-wing'd,

The heights of science and of virtue gains,
Where all is calm and clear; with Nature round,

Or in the starry regions, or th' abyss,

To Reason's and to Fancy's eye display'd:

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