What then is taste, but these internal powers Active, and strong, and feelingly alive To each fine impulse,--a discerning sense Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust From things deform'd, or disarranged, or gross In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold, 520 Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow; But God alone, when first His active hand Imprints the secret bias of the soul. He, mighty Parent! wise and just in all, Free as the vital breeze or light of heaven, Reveals the charms of Nature. Ask the swain Who journeys homeward from a summer day's Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils And due repose, he loiters to behold The sunshine gleaming as through amber clouds, 530 O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween, His rude expression and untutor'd airs, Beyond the power of language, will unfold The form of beauty, smiling at his heart, How lovely! how commanding! But though Heaven In every breast hath sown these early seeds Of love and admiration, yet in vain, Without fair culture's kind parental aid, Without enlivening suns, and genial showers, And shelter from the blast, in vain we hope 540 The tender plant should rear its blooming head, Or yield the harvest promised in its spring. Nor yet will every soul with equal stores Repay the tiller's labour, or attend His will, obsequious, whether to produce The olive or the laurel. Different minds Incline to different objects; one pursues The vast alone, [Endnote LL] the wonderful, the wild; Another sighs for harmony, and grace, And gentlest beauty. Hence, when lightning fires 550 The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground, When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air, And ocean, groaning from his lowest bed, Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky; Amid the mighty uproar, while below The nations tremble, Shakspeare looks abroad Prom some high cliff, superior, and enjoys The elemental war. But Waller longs, [Endnote MM] All on the margin of some flowery stream To spread his careless limbs amid the cool 560 Of plantane shades, and to the listening deer The tale of slighted vows and love's disdain Resound soft-warbling all the livelong day; Consenting Zephyr sighs; the weeping rill Joins in his plaint, melodious; mute the groves; And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn. Such and so various are the tastes of men.