He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state,
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate:
Him portioned maids, apprenticed ophans, bless'd—
The young who labour, and the old who rest.
Is any sick?-The MAN OF Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes and gives.
Is there a variance ?-Enter but his door,
Baulk'd are the courts, and contest is no more.
Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now a useless race.

Thrice happy man, enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the power to do!
Oh say, what sums that generous hand supply?
What mines to swell that boundless charity?

Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear,
This man possessed-five hundred pounds a year.
Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your
blaze!

Ye little stars, hide your diminish'd rays.

And what! no monument, inscription, stone?
His race, his form, his name almost unknown?
Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name.
Go, search it there, where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor makes all the history;
Enough, that virtue filled the space between ;
Proved by the ends of being to have been.

THOMSON.-BORN 1700; DIED 1748.

THE HYMN OF THE SEASONS.
THESE as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love.

Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round, the forest smiles,
And every sense and every heart is joy.
Then comes Thy glory in the Summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks:
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales:
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In winter awful Thou! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, Thou bidst the world adore,
And humblest nature with Thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined,
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade,
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres;
Works in the secret deep; o'erspreads the Spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature attend! join every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes;
Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms,

Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,

Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven
The 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 roaring 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.

EXTRACTS FROM "THE SEASONS.”

SPRING.

BY THOMSON.

COME, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come,
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.
And see where surly Winter passes off,
Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts ;
His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,
The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,
Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,

The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.
As yet the trembling year is unconfirm'd,
And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze,
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets
Deform the day delightless: so that scarce
The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulph'd
To shake the sounding marsh; or from the shore
The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath,
And sing their wild notes to the listening waste.

At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun,
And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more
Th' expansive atmosphere is cramp'd with cold;
But, full of life and vivifying soul,

Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them thin,
Fleecy and white, o'er all-surrounding heaven.
Forth fly the tepid airs; and unconfin'd,
Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays.
Joyous, th' impatient husbandman perceives
Relenting Nature, and his lusty steers

Drives from their stalls, to where the well-us'd plough
Lies in the furrow, loosened from the frost.

M

There, unrefusing, to the harnessed yoke
They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil,
Cheer'd by the simple song and soaring lark.
Meanwhile, incumbent o'er the shining share
The master leans, removes th' obstructing clay,
Winds the whole work and sidelong lays the glebe.
While thro' the neighbouring field the sower stalks,
With measur'd step, and liberal throws the grain
Into the faithful bosom of the ground:

The harrow follows harsh and shuts the scene.

Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious Man
Has done his part. Ye, fostering breezes, blow!
Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend!
And temper all, thou world reviving sun,
Into the perfect year!

Behold yon breathing prospect bids the Muse Throw all her beauty forth. But who can paint Like Nature? Can imagination boast,

Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?

Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,
And lose them in each other, as appears
In every bud that blows? If fancy then
Unequal fails beneath the pleasing task,

Ah! what shall language do ? Ah! where find words
Ting'd with so many colours; and whose power,
To life approaching, may perfume my lays

With that fine oil, those aromatic gales,
That inexhaustive flow continual round?

SUMMER.

From brightening fields of ether fair disclos'd,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth :
He comes attended by the sultry hours,