Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.

And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven
The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;

Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,

Sound His stupendous praise; whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Soft-roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to Him; whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,

From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On Nature write with every beam His praise.
The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate world;
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.

Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye mossy rocks, Retain the sound: the broad responsive low,

Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song

Burst from the groves; and when the restless day, Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,

Sweetest of birds, sweet Philomela, charm

The listening shades and teach the night His praise.

Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! In swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft-breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to heaven.

Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove;
Then let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll.
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,
Or Winter rises in the blackening East;
Be my tongue mute, may Fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!

Should fate command me to the furthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam

Flames on the Atlantic Isles; tis nought to me: Since God is ever present, ever felt,

In the void waste as in the city full;

And where He vital breathes there must be joy.
When e'en at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go
Where Universal Love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs and all their suns;
From seeming Evil still educing Good,
And Better thence again, and Better still,

In infinite progression. But I lose

Myself in Him, in Light ineffable !

Come, then, expressive silence, muse His praise.

ODE TO EVENING.

BY WILLIAM COLLINS.

[WILLIAM COLLINS, the son of a respectable tradesman, a hatter in Chichester, was born on Christmas Day, 1720. Through the assistance of his uncle, he received a college education at Oxford. He quitted that seat of learning for London in 1744, with high hopes and magnificent schemes. In 1746, he published his "Odes" and "Eclogues," but their success did not realize his sanguine expectations, and he suffered not only from disappointment, but from poverty even beyond the lot of poets. He was raised temporarily from his abject condition by a legacy of 2,000l. from his uncle; but he never recovered his spirits, and after a short time sank into a state of hopeless imbecility. He died in the year 1756, at the early age of thirty-six. His Odes, of which the most celebrated are that to "Evening" and on the "Passions," are, without doubt, among the first productions of British Poetry.]

IF ought of oaten stop, or pastoral song,

May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear

Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent whose cloudy skirts,

With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed: