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 valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns;
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
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 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 th' Atlantic isles; 'tis naught 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.

THE

CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

CANTO I

The Castle high of Indolence,

And its false luxury,

Where for a little time, alas!
We liv'd right jollily.

O MORTAL man! who livest here by toil Do not complain of this thy hard estate; That like an emmet thou must ever moil, Is a sad sentence of an ancient date: And, certes, there is for it reason great; For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail, And curse thy star, and early drudge, and late, Withouten that would come an heavier bale, Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.

In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,

With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,

Than whom a fiend more fell is no where found.

It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground;

And there a season atween June and May,
Half prankt with spring, with summer half em-
brown'd,

A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,
No living wight could work, ne cared even for play.

Was nought around but images of rest, Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between, And flowery beds that slumb'rous influence kest From poppies breath'd and beds of pleasant green, Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd, And hurled every where their waters sheen, ' That, as they bicker'd through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.

Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills Were heard the lowing herds along the vale, And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills, And vacant shepherds piping in the dale; And now and then sweet Philomel would wail, Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep, That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale; And still a coil the grasshopper did keep; Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.

Full in the passage of the vale, above, A sable, silent, solemn, forest stood,

Where nought but shadowy forms was seen to move,
As idless fancy'd in her dreaming mood;
And up the hills, on either side, a wood
Of blackening pines, ay waving to and fro,a
Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;
And where this valley winded out, below,
The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard
to flow.

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, And of gay castles in the cloud that pass, For ever flushing round a summer sky; There eke the soft delights, that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures, always hover'd nigh; But whate'er smack'd of noyance or unrest Was far, far off expell'd from this delicious nest.

The landscape such, inspiring perfect ease, Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight) Close hid his Castle 'mid embowering trees, That half shut out the beams of Phœbus bright. And made a kind of checker'd day and night; Mean while, unceasing at the massy gate, Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight Was plac'd, and to his lute, of cruel fate, And labour harsh, complain'd lamenting man's estate.