lay,
"Mourn, sweetest complainer! man calls thee to mourn:
"O sooth him, whose pleasures like thine pass away--
"Full quickly they pass--but they never return.
"Now gliding remote on the verge of the sky,
"The moon, half-extinguished, her crescent displays:
"But lately I marked, when majestic on high,
"She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
"Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
"The path that conducts thee to splendour again:
"But man's faded glory no change shall renew--
"Ah fool! to exult in a glory so vain!
"Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more:
"I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
"For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
"Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew.
"Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;
"Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save.--
"But when shall Spring visit the mouldering urn?
"O, when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?"
'Twas thus, by the glare of false science betrayed,
That leads, to bewilder, and dazzles, to blind;
My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,
Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.
"O pity, great Father of light," then I cried,
"Thy creature, who fain would not wander from Thee!
"Lo! humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:
"From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free."
And darkness and doubt are now flying away:
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn.
So breaks on the traveller, faint, and astray,
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.
See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending,
And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!
On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending,
And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb!
ODE TO PEACE.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1756.
I. 1.
Peace, heaven-descended maid! whose powerful voice
From antient darkness called the morn;
And hushed of jarring elements the noise,
When Chaos, from his old dominion torn,
With all his bellowing throng,
Far, far was hurled the void abyss along;
And all the bright angelic choir,
Striking, through all their ranks, the eternal lyre,
Poured, in loud symphony, the impetuous strain;
And every fiery orb and planet sung,
And
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