If dewy meads with bright luxuriance glow, And every flower with new-born radiance blow; If chance a village church, or village cot, Mark the embowered hamlet's peaceful spot, Where waves the elm beside the churchyard wall,

Vocal with red-breast's trill, or sparrow's call; Around whose hollow trunk, beneath whose shade, Stands the known bench for rustic converse made; And stretches towards the road the slanting

green,

Where village hinds in pastime oft are seen;
While merry bells in tuneful peals convey
The jocund news of heartsome holiday:
If chance these rustic sounds and shapes impart,
Some comfort to my nature-kindling heart,
Clothed in the wildness of poetic light,

Your brighter wonders sweep before my sight.

The little hill, at distance seen to rise,

Of mountain speaks, whose summits pierce the skies;

Brings to my view the majesty of forms,

Which bid defiance to the North's bleak storms; The rising zephyr tells of sportive gales,

That curl your lakes and fan your laughing vales;

Or, borne aloft on pinion more sublime,

To the peaked cliff's aërial summit climb;
The crystal stream which winds where willows

grow,

With more than mountain murmurs seems to

flow,

Near its smooth lapse, and sand of sunny dyes,
The chasm yawns, and rock-piled summits rise;
And o'er its vacant banks does fancy see
The stormy torrent's fearful imagery,
The peaceful cottage to my soul recalls
Your more fantastic shed, with leafy walls,
Where I, with Love, would gladly wear away
What more remains of life's mysterious day:
It brings the little hut, the nameless stream,
Where Hope might ponder on her softest theme;
It brings the mead that spreads before the door,
Its cheerful verdure, and its flowery store;
It brings the woods above the roof that rise,
Whence many a glad bird's song salutes the

skies;

It brings the garden prankt with many a flower, The sacred transports of the evening bower, Where, clothed in peacefulness, my soul should

prove

The father's fondness, and the husband's love:

H

It brings with all its charms the imaged cell,
Which hopeful fancy fears to love too well!

As yet this must not be! my weary feet, Must still awhile toil on where proud men greet. The obtrusive world's unprofitable load Must still with many a pang my bosom goad: Yet grant, oh Heaven, a spirit to endure, Not yield; though art in every shape allure. E'en now I feel within my burthen'd mind An anxious trouble 'mid your charms to find, That day of rest from each polluting thing, Which silence, solitude, and nature bring; And every shape and sound that here annoy Speak, though in accents rude, of future joy.

LINES

TO THE SABBATH.

April 23, 1803.

THE Author is well aware that, as far as the following Poem appears to be argumentative, the principle which it inculcates is indefensible: it seems like inferring that, because an institution may be abused, however excellent it may be in its design, it should not be used.

Wherever, whenever, and on whatsoever occasion, human beings meet together, they will carry human passions with them; to church, as well as to market; to the meeting-house, as well as to the ball-room: the good done by means of positive religious rites is prodigious; and it would be difficult to make out a case of any counterbalancing evil of which they are the cause; therefore let it not be supposed that, because

the Author in the following Poem satirizes the intrusion of vulgar passions within the sacred threshold, he no longer wishes that threshold to be passed on the other hand, he only laments that it is not more universally passed, as such a phenomenon would be one of the most conclusive prognostics that those very passions which he has described were on the decline. In one word, let the following poem be considered rather as a picture, than as an enunciation of principles.*

Ан, holy day, I love to hear the chime
Of merry bells that usher in thy morn:
The rustic trimly clad, the rural lass,
Delight my heart. I love to see them speed,
Along the meadow pathway, to the style
That bounds the church-yard. The suspense
- Of toil, the universal quietude

* The author might add, that even the poet, par excel lence religious, Cowper, might be deemed irreligious, if to satirize the abuse of religious institutions, render a man obnoxious to such an epithet. See his description of the coxcomb parson, and various other passages in his poems.