From nature’s birth, hence, wisdom has been smit
With sweet recess, and languish’d for the shade. 170
This sacred shade, and solitude, what is it?
’Tis the felt presence of the Deity.
Few are the faults we flatter when alone.
Vice sinks in her allurements, is ungilt,
And looks, like other objects, black by night.
By night an atheist half believes a God.
Night is fair virtue’s immemorial friend;
The conscious moon, through every distant age,