Th' 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 hushed 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 valleys, raise: for the Great Shepherd reigns;
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands, all awake! A boundless song
Bursts 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 base;
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,
There 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, my fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!
Should fate command me to the farthest 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 even 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.
A PARAPHRASE ON THE LATTER PART OF THE SIXTH CHAPTER
WHEN my breast labours with oppressive care,
And o'er my cheek descends the falling tear,
While all my warring passions are at strife,
Oh! let me listen to the words of life!
Raptures deep felt his doctrine did impart,
And thus He raised from earth the drooping heart:
"Think not, when all your scanty stores afford
Is spread at once upon the sparing board;
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears,
While on the roof the howling tempest bears;
What farther shall this feeble life sustain,
And what shall clothe these shivering limbs again.
Say, does not life its nourishment exceed?
And the fair body its investing weed?
Behold, and look away your low despair
See the light tenants of the barren air:
To them not stores nor granaries belong;
Nought but the woodland and the pleasing song;
Yet your kind heavenly Father bends his eye
On the least wing that flits along the sky.
To Him they sing when spring renews the plain,
To Him they cry in winter's pinching reign;
Nor is their music nor their plaint in vain :
He hears the gay and the distressful call,
And with unsparing bounty fills them all.
Observe the rising lily's snowy grace;
Observe the various vegetable race;
They neither toil nor spin; but careless grow;
Yet see how warm they blush, how bright they glow!
What regal vestments can with them compare?
What king so shining, or what queen so fair?
If ceaseless, then, the fowls of heaven He feeds;
If o'er the fields such lucid robes He spreads;
Will He not care for you, ye faithless, say?
Is He unwise? or, are ye less than they?"
EDWARD YOUNG was born at Upham, near Winchester, in 1681. He was educated at Winchester School, and removed from thence to New College, Oxford. He took orders in 1727, and soon after was appointed Chaplain to the King. After this he engaged in politics, and at the age of eighty he solicited further preferment from Archbishop Secker, and was appointed Clerk of the Closet to the Princess dowager of Wales. He died in April, 1765.
The principal work of Dr. Young is his Night Thoughts, of which Dr. Johnson gives the following just and graphic character: "The author has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections, and striking allusions; a wildness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and order. The excellence of this work is not exactness, but copiousness; particular lines are not to be regarded, the power is in the whole; and in the whole there is a magnificence, like that ascribed to a Chinese plantation: the magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity."
IMMORTAL! ages past, yet nothing gone
Morn without eve! a race without a goal!
Unshortened by progression infinite!
Futurity for ever future! life
Beginning still where computation ends
'Tis the description of a Deity!
'Tis the description of the meanest slave.
Immortal! What can strike the sense so strong,
As this the soul? it thunders to the thought;
Reason amazes, gratitude o'erwhelms.
No more we slumber on the brink of fate;
Roused at the sound, the exulting soul ascends,
And breathes her native air: an air that feeds
Ambition high, and fans ethereal fires!
Quick kindles all that is divine within us,
Nor leaves one loitering thought beneath the stars.
Immortal! was but one immortal, how
Would others envy! how would thrones adore!
Because 'tis common, is the blessing less?
How this ties up the bounteous hands of heaven
O vain, vain, vain! all else; eternity!
A glorious and a needful refuge that,
From vile imprisonment in abject views.
'Tis immortality, 'tis that alone,
Amid life's pains, abasements, emptiness,
The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill.
Eternity depending covers all;
Sets earth at distance, casts her into shades;
Blends her distinctions; abrogates her powers:
The low, the lofty, joyous, and severe,
Fortune's dread frowns, and fascinating smiles,
Make one promiscuous and neglected heap,
The man beneath, if I may call him man,
Whom immortality's full force inspires.
Nothing terrestrial touching his high thought;
Suns shine unseen, and thunders roll unheard,
By minds quite conscious of their high descent,
Their present province and their future prize;
Divinely darting upward every wish,
Warm on the wing, in glorious absence lost.
Doubt you this truth? Why labours your belief?
If earth's whole orb by some due distanced eye
Was seen at once, her towering Alps would sink,
And levelled Atlas leave an even sphere.
Thus earth, and all that earthly minds admire,
Is swallowed in eternity's vast round.
To that stupendous view when souls awake,
So large of late, so mountainous to man,
Time's joys subside, and equal all below.
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