''Twas in the windings of an ancient wood, When spotless youth with solitude resigns To sweet philosophy the studious day, What time pale Autumn shades the silent eve, 190 Musing I roved. Of good and evil much, And much of mortal man my thought revolved; When starting full on fancy's gushing eye The mournful image of Parthenia's fate, That hour, O long beloved and long deplored! When blooming youth, nor gentlest wisdom's arts, Nor Hymen's honours gather'd for thy brow, Nor all thy lover's, all thy father's tears Avail'd to snatch thee from the cruel grave; Thy agonising looks, thy last farewell 200 Struck to the inmost feeling of my soul As with the hand of Death. At once the shade More horrid nodded o'er me, and the winds With hoarser murmuring shook the branches. Dark As midnight storms, the scene of human things Appear'd before me; deserts, burning sands, Where the parch'd adder dies; the frozen south, And desolation blasting all the west With rapine and with murder: tyrant power Here sits enthroned with blood; the baleful charms 210 Of superstition there infect the skies, And turn the sun to horror. Gracious Heaven! What is the life of man? Or cannot these, Not these portents thy awful will suffice, That, propagated thus beyond their scope, They rise to act their cruelties anew In my afflicted bosom, thus decreed The universal sensitive of pain, The wretched heir of evils not its own?' Thus I impatient: when, at once effused, 220 A flashing torrent of celestial day Burst through the shadowy void. With slow descent A purple cloud came floating through the sky, And, poised at length within the circling trees, Hung obvious to my view; till opening wide Its lucid orb, a more than human form Emerging lean'd majestic o'er my head, And instant thunder shook the conscious grove. Then melted into air the liquid cloud, And all the shining vision stood reveal'd. 230 A wreath of palm his ample forehead bound, And o'er his shoulder, mantling to his knee, Flow'd the transparent robe, around his waist Collected with a radiant zone of gold Aethereal: there in mystic signs engraved, I read his office high and sacred name, Genius of human kind! Appall'd I gazed The godlike presence; for athwart his brow Displeasure, temper'd with a mild concern, Look'd down reluctant on me, and his words 240 Like distant thunders broke the murmuring air: