Noontide Retreat of Summer As a Haunt for Meditation
Shook sudden from the bosom of the sky,
A thousand shapes, or glide athwart the dusk,
Or stalk majestic on. Deep-roused, I feel
A sacred terror, a severe delight,
Creep through my mortal frame; and thus, methinks,
A voice, than human more, th' abstracted ear
Of fancy strikes: - 'Be not of us afraid,
Poor kindred man! thy fellow-creatures, we
From the same Parent-power our beings drew,
The same our Lord, and laws, and great pursuit.
Once, some of us, like thee, through stormy life
Toil'd, tempest-beaten, ere we could attain
This holy calm, this harmony of mind,
Where purity and peace immingle charms.
Then fear not us; but with responsive song,
Amid these dim recesses, undisturb'd
By noisy folly and discordant vice,
Of nature sing with us, and nature's God.
Here frequent, at the visionary hour,
When musing midnight reigns, or silent noon,
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poem by James Thomson
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Epilogue to Agamemnon
Our bard, to modern epilogue a foe,
Thinks such mean mirth but deadens generous woe;
Dispels in idle air the moral sigh,
And wipes the tender tear from Pity's eye:
No more with social warmth the bosom burns;
But all the unfeeling selfish man returns.
Thus he began:—And you approved the strain;
Till the next couplet sunk to light and vain.
You check'd him there.—To you, to reason just,
He owns he triumph'd in your kind disgust.
Charm'd by your frown, by your displeasure graced,
He hails the rising virtue of your taste.
Wide will its influence spread as soon as known:
Truth, to be loved, needs only to be shown.
Confirm it, once, the fashion to be good:
(Since fashion leads the fool, and awes the rude)
No petulance shall wound the public ear;
No hand applaud what honour shuns to hear:
No painful blush the modest cheek shall stain;
The worthy breast shall heave with no disdain.
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poem by James Thomson
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Cattle In Summer
Around th' adjoining brook, that purls along
The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock,
Now scarcely moving through a reedy pool,
Now starting to a sudden stream, and now
Gently diffused into a limpid plain
A various group the herds and flocks compose.
Rural confusion! on the grassy bank
Some ruminating lie; while others stand
Half circling surface. In the middle droops
The strong laborious ox, of honest front,
Which incomposed he shakes; and from his sides
The troublous insects lashes with his tail,
Returning still. Amid his subjects safe,
Slumbers the monarch swain; his careless arm
Thrown round his head, on downy moss sustain'd;
Here laid his scrip, with wholesome viands fill'd;
There, listening every noise, his watchful dog.
Light fly his slumbers, if perchance a flight
Of angry gadflies fasten on the herd;
The startling scatters from the shallow brook,
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poem by James Thomson
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The Incomparable Soporific Doctor
Sweet, sleeky Doctor! dear pacific soul!
Lay at the beef, and suck the vital bowl!
Still let the involving smoke around thee fly,
And broad-looked dulness settle in thine eye.
Ah! soft in down these dainty limbs repose,
And in the very lap of slumber doze;
But chiefly on the lazy day of grace,
Call forth the lambent glories of thy face;
If aught the thoughts of dinner can prevail,
And sure the Sunday's dinner cannot fail,
To the thin church in sleepy pomp proceed,
And lean on the lethargic book thy head;
Those eyes wipe often with the hallowed lawn,
Profoundly nod, immeasurably yawn;
Slow let the prayers by thy meek lips be sung,
Nor let thy thoughts be distanced by thy tongue;
If e'er the lingerers are within a call,
Or if on prayers thou deign'st to think at all.
Yet - only yet - the swimming head we bend;
But when serene, the pulpit you ascend,
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poem by James Thomson
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Insects In Summer
Waked by his warmer ray, the reptile young
Came wing'd abroad; by the light air upborne
Lighter, and full of soul. From every chink
And secret corner, where they slept away
The wintry storms; or rising from their tombs
To higher life; by myriads, forth at once,
Swarming they pour; of all the varied hues
Their beauty-beaming parent can disclose.
Ten thousand forms! ten thousand different tribes!
People the blaze. To sunny waters some
By fatal instinct fly; where on the pool
They sportive wheel, or sailing down the stream,
Are snatch'd immediate, by the quick-eyed trout,
Or darting salmon. Through the greenwood glade
Some love to stray; there lodged, amused, and fed,
In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make
The meads their choice, and visit every flower,
And every latent herb; and where to wrap,
In what soft beds, their young yet undisclosed,
Employs their tender care. Some to the house,
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poem by James Thomson
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Evening In Summer
Confess'd from yonder slow-extinguish'd clouds,
All ether softening, sober Evening takes
Her wonted station in the middle air;
She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye
Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still,
In circle following circle, gathers round,
To close the face of things. A fresher gale
Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream,
Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn;
While the quail clamours for his running mate.
Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,
A whitening shower of vegetable down
Amusive floats. The kind impartial care
Of Nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed
Her lowest songs, and clothe the coming year,
From field to field the feather'd seed she wings.
Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge,
The glowworm lights his gem; and through the dark
A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields
The world to Night; not in her winter robe
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poem by James Thomson
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Two Sonnets
I
"Why are your songs all wild and bitter sad
As funeral dirges with the orphans' cries?
Each night since first the world was made hath had
A sequent day to laugh it down the skies.
Chant us a glee to make our hearts rejoice,
Or seal in silence this unmanly moan."
My friend, I have no power to rule my voice --
A spirit lifts me where I lie alone,
And thrills me into song by its own laws;
That which I feel, but seldom know, indeed
Tempering the melody it could not cause.
The bleeding heart cannot forever bleed
Inwardly solely; on the wan lips, too,
Dark blood will bubble ghastly into view.
II
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poem by James Thomson
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The Happy Man
He's not the happy man, to whom is given
A plenteous fortune by indulgent Heaven;
Whose gilded roofs on shining columns rise,
And painted walls enchant the gazer's eyes;
Whose table flows with hospitable cheer,
And all the various bounty of the year;
Whose valleys smile, whose gardens breathe the spring,
Whose curved mountains bleat, and forests sing;
For whom the cooling shade in summer twines,
While his full cellars give their generous wines;
From whose wide fields unbounded autumn pours
A golden tide into his swelling stores;
Whose winter laughs; for whom the liberal gales
Stretch the big sheet, and toiling commerce sails;
Whom yielding crowds attend, and pleasure serves;
While youth, and health, and vigour string his nerves.
E'en not all these, in one rich lot combined,
Can make the happy man, without the mind;
Where judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys
The chain of reason with unerring gaze;
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poem by James Thomson
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An Elegy Upon James Therburn, In Chatto
Now, Chatto, you're a dreary place,
Pale sorrow broods on ilka face;
Therburn has run his race.
And now, and now, ah me, alas!
The carl lies dead.
Having his paternoster said,
He took a dram and went to bed;
He fell asleep, and death was glad
That he had catched him;
For Therburn was e'en ill bested,
That none did watch him.
For had the carl but been aware,
That meagre death, who none does spare,
T'attempt sic things should ever dare,
As stop his pipe;
He might have come to flee or scare;
The greedy gripe.
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poem by James Thomson
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A Complaint On The Miseries Of Life
I loathe, O Lord, this life below,
And all its fading fleeting joys;
'Tis a short space that's fill'd with woe,
Which all our bliss by far outweighs.
When will the everlasting morn
With dawning light the skies adorn?
Fitly this life's compared to night,
When gloomy darkness shades the sky;
Just like the morn's our glimmering light
Reflected from the Deity.
When will celestial morn dispel
These dark surrounding shades of hell?
I'm sick of this vexatious state,
Where cares invade my peaceful hours;
Strike the last blow, O courteous fate,
I'll smiling fall like mowed flowers;
I'll gladly spurn this clogging clay,
And, sweetly singing, soar away.
What's money but refined dust?
What's honours but an empty name?
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poem by James Thomson
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