Thus beauty, mimicked in our humbler strains,
Illustrious through the world's great poem reigns!
The One grows sundry by creative power,
Th' eternal's found in each revolving hour;
Th' immense appears in every point of space,
Th' unchangeable in nature's varying face;
Th' invisible conspicuous to our mind,
And Deity in every atom shrined.
[NATURE SUPERIOR TO CIVILIZATION]
O Nature, whom the song aspires to scan!
O Beauty, trod by proud insulting man,
This boasted tyrant of thy wondrous ball,
This mighty, haughty, little lord of all;
This king o'er reason, but this slave to sense,
Of wisdom careless, but of whim immense;
Towards thee incurious, ignorant, profane,
But of his own, dear, strange productions vain!
Then with this champion let the field be fought,
And nature's simplest arts 'gainst human wisdom brought.
Let elegance and bounty here unite—
There kings beneficent and courts polite;
Here nature's wealth—there chemist's golden dreams;
Her texture here—and there the statesman's schemes;
Conspicuous here let sacred truth appear—
The courtier's word, and lordling's honour, there;
Here native sweets in boon profusion flow—
There smells that scented nothing of a beau;
Let justice here unequal combat wage—
Nor poise the judgment of the law-learned sage;
Though all-proportioned with exactest skill,
Yet gay as woman's wish, and various as her will.
O say ye pitied, envied, wretched great,
Who veil pernicion with the mask of state!
Whence are those domes that reach the mocking skies,
And vainly emulous of nature rise?
Behold the swain projected o'er the vale!
See slumbering peace his rural eyelids seal;
Earth's flowery lap supports his vacant head,
Beneath his limbs her broidered garments spread;
Aloft her elegant pavilion bends,
And living shade of vegetation lends,
With ever propagated bounty blessed,
And hospitably spread for every guest:
No tinsel here adorns a tawdry woof,
Nor lying wash besmears a varnished roof;
With native mode the vivid colours shine,
And Heaven's own loom has wrought the weft divine,
Where art veils art, and beauties' beauties close,
While central grace diffused throughout the system flows.
[THE SPLENDOUR OF INSECTS]
Gemmed o'er their heads the mines of India gleam,
And heaven's own wardrobe has arrayed their frame;
Each spangled back bright sprinkling specks adorn,
Each plume imbibes the rosy-tinctured morn;
Spread on each wing, the florid seasons glow,
Shaded and verged with the celestial bow,
Where colours blend an ever-varying dye,
And wanton in their gay exchanges vie.
Not all the glitter fops and fair ones prize,
The pride of fools, and pity of the wise;
Not all the show and mockery of state,
The little, low, fine follies of the great;
Not all the wealth which eastern pageants wore,
What still our idolizing worlds adore;
Can boast the least inimitable grace
Which decks profusive this illustrious race.
[MORAL LESSONS FROM ANIMAL LIFE]
Ye self-sufficient sons of reasoning pride,
Too wise to take Omniscience for your guide,
Those rules from insects, birds, and brutes discern
Which from the Maker you disdain to learn!
The social friendship, and the firm ally,
The filial sanctitude, and nuptial tie,
Patience in want, and faith to persevere,
Th' endearing sentiment, and tender care,
Courage o'er private interest to prevail,
And die all Decii for the public weal.
[PROMPTINGS OF DIVINE INSTINCT]
Dispersed through every copse or marshy plain,
Where hunts the woodcock or the annual crane,
Where else encamped the feathered legions spread
Or bathe incumbent on their oozy bed,
The brimming lake thy smiling presence fills,
And waves the banners of a thousand hills.
Thou speed'st the summons of thy warning voice:
Winged at thy word, the distant troops rejoice,
From every quarter scour the fields of air,
And to the general rendezvous repair;
Each from the mingled rout disporting turns,
And with the love of kindred plumage burns.
Thy potent will instinctive bosoms feel,
And here arranging semilunar, wheel;
Or marshalled here the painted rhomb display
Or point the wedge that cleaves th' aërial way:
Uplifted on thy wafting breath they rise;
Thou pav'st the regions of the pathless skies,
Through boundless tracts support'st the journeyed host
And point'st the voyage to the certain coast,—
Thou the sure compass and the sea they sail,
The chart, the port, the steerage, and the gale!