with easy grace?Around her Phoebus in unbounded space;?True to her course th' impetuous storm derides,?Triumphant o'er the winds, and surging tides.?Almighty, in these wond'rous works of thine,?What Pow'r, what Wisdom, and what Goodness shine!?And are thy wonders, Lord, by men explor'd,?And yet creating glory unador'd!?Creation smiles in various beauty gay,?While day to night, and night succeeds to day:?That Wisdom, which attends Jehovah's ways,?Shines most conspicuous in the solar rays:?Without them, destitute of heat and light,?This world would be the reign of endless night:?In their excess how would our race complain,?Abhorring life! how hate its length'ned chain!?From air adust what num'rous ills would rise??What dire contagion taint the burning skies??What pestilential vapours, fraught with death,?Would rise, and overspread the lands beneath??Hail, smiling morn, that from the orient main?Ascending dost adorn the heav'nly plain!?So rich, so various are thy beauteous dies,?That spread through all the circuit of the skies,?That, full of thee, my soul in rapture soars,?And thy great God, the cause of all adores.?O'er beings infinite his love extends,?His Wisdom rules them, and his Pow'r defends.?When tasks diurnal tire the human frame,?The spirits faint, and dim the vital flame,?Then too that ever active bounty shines,?Which not infinity of space confines.?The sable veil, that Night in silence draws,?Conceals effects, but shows th' Almighty Cause,?Night seals in sleep the wide creation fair,?And all is peaceful but the brow of care.?Again, gay Phoebus, as the day before,?Wakes ev'ry eye, but what shall wake no more;?Again the face of nature is renew'd,?Which still appears harmonious, fair, and good.?May grateful strains salute the smiling morn,?Before its beams the eastern hills adorn!?Shall day to day, and night to night conspire?To show the goodness of the Almighty Sire??This mental voice shall man regardless hear,?And never, never raise the filial pray'r??To-day, O hearken, nor your folly mourn?For time mispent, that never will return.
But see the sons of vegetation rise,?And spread their leafy banners to the skies.?All-wise Almighty Providence we trace?In trees, and plants, and all the flow'ry race;?As clear as in the nobler frame of man,?All lovely copies of the Maker's plan.?The pow'r the same that forms a ray of light,?That call d creation from eternal night.?"Let there be light," he said: from his profound?Old Chaos heard, and trembled at the sound:?Swift as the word, inspir'd by pow'r divine,?Behold the light around its Maker shine,?The first fair product of th' omnific God,?And now through all his works diffus'd abroad.
As reason's pow'rs by day our God disclose,?So we may trace him in the night's repose:?Say what is sleep? and dreams how passing strange!?When action ceases, and ideas range?Licentious and unbounded o'er the plains,?Where Fancy's queen in giddy triumph reigns.?Hear in soft strains the dreaming lover sigh?To a kind fair, or rave in jealousy;?On pleasure now, and now on vengeance bent,?The lab'ring passions struggle for a vent.?What pow'r, O man! thy reason then restores,?So long suspended in nocturnal hours??What secret hand returns the mental train,?And gives improv'd thine active pow'rs again??From thee, O man, what gratitude should rise!?And, when from balmy sleep thou op'st thine eyes,?Let thy first thoughts be praises to the skies.?How merciful our God who thus imparts?O'erflowing tides of joy to human hearts,?When wants and woes might be our righteous lot,?Our God forgetting, by our God forgot!?Among the mental pow'rs a question rose,?"What most the image of th' Eternal shows?"?When thus to Reason (so let Fancy rove)?Her great companion spoke immortal Love.?"Say, mighty pow'r, how long shall strife prevail,?"And with its murmurs load the whisp'ring gale??"Refer the cause to Recollection's shrine,?"Who loud proclaims my origin divine,?"The cause whence heav'n and earth began to be,?"And is not man immortaliz'd by me??"Reason let this most causeless strife subside."?Thus Love pronounc'd, and Reason thus reply'd.?"Thy birth, coelestial queen! 'tis mine to own,?"In thee resplendent is the Godhead shown;?"Thy words persuade, my soul enraptur'd feels?"Resistless beauty which thy smile reveals."?Ardent she spoke, and, kindling at her charms,?She clasp'd the blooming goddess in her arms.?Infinite Love where'er we turn our eyes?Appears: this ev'ry creature's wants supplies;?This most is heard in Nature's constant voice,?This makes the morn, and this the eve rejoice;?This bids the fost'ring rains and dews descend?To nourish all, to serve one gen'ral end,?The good of man: yet man ungrateful pays?But little homage, and but little praise.?To him, whose works arry'd with mercy shine,?What songs should rise, how constant, how divine!
To a Lady on the Death of three Relations.
WE trace the pow'r of Death from tomb to tomb,?And his are all the ages yet to come.?'Tis his to call the planets from on high,?To blacken Phoebus, and dissolve the sky;?His too, when all in his dark realms are hurl'd,?From its firm base to shake the solid world;?His fatal sceptre rules the spacious whole,?And trembling nature rocks from pole to pole.?Awful he moves, and wide his wings are spread:?Behold thy brother number'd with
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