[Illustration: The garden to the view its vistas open] Hail, Source of Beings! Universal Soul Of heaven and earth! Essential Presence, hail! To thee I bend the knee; to thee my thoughts, Continual, climb; who, with a master-hand, Hast the great whole into perfection touch'd. By thee the various vegetative tribes, Wrapp'd in a filmy net, and clad with leaves, Draw the live ether, and imbibe the dew. By thee dispos'd into congenial soils, Stands each attractive plant, and sucks, and swells The juicy tide; a twining mass of tubes. At thy command the vernal sun awakes The torpid sap, detruded to the root By wintry winds, that now in fluent dance, And lively fermentation, mounting, spreads. All this innumerous-color'd scene of things. As rising from the vegetable world My theme ascends, with equal wing ascend, My panting muse; and hark, how loud the woods Invite you forth in all your gayest trim. Lend me your song, ye nightingales! oh, pour The mazy-running soul of melody Into my varied verse! while I deduce, From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings, The symphony of Spring, and touch a theme Unknown to fame--the passion of the groves. When first the soul of love is sent abroad, Warm through the vital air, and on the heart Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin, In gallant thought, to plume the painted wing; And try again the long forgotten strain, At first faint-warbled. But no sooner grows The soft infusion prevalent, and wide, Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows In music unconfin'd. Up springs the lark, Shrill-voic'd and loud, the messenger of morn: Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads Of the coy quiristers that lodge within, Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush And woodlark, o'er the kind contending throng Superior heard, run through the sweetest length Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns To let them joy, and purposes, in thought Elate, to make her night excel their day. The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake; The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove; Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze Pour'd out profusely, silent: join'd to these Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw, And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone, Aid the full concert; while the stockdove breathes A melancholy murmur through the whole. 'Tis love creates their melody, and all This waste of music is the voice of love; That even to birds and beasts the tender arts Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind