Old Midnight’s sister, Contemplation sage,
  (Queen of the rugged brow and stern-fixt eye,)
  To lift my soul above this little earth,
  This folly-fettered world:  to purge my ears,
  That I may hear the rolling planets’ song,
  And tuneful turning spheres:  if this be barred
  The little fays, that dance in neighbouring dales,
  Sipping the night-dew, while they laugh and love,
  Shall charm me with aerial notes.—­As thus
  I wander musing, lo, what awful forms
  Yonder appear! sharp-eyed Philosophy
  Clad in dun robes, an eagle on his wrist,
  First meets my eye; next, virgin Solitude
  Serene, who blushes at each gazer’s sight;
  Then Wisdom’s hoary head, with crutch in hand,
  Trembling, and bent with age; last Virtue’s self,
  Smiling, in white arrayed, who with her leads
  Sweet Innocence, that prattles by her side,
  A naked boy!—­Harassed with fear I stop,
  I gaze, when Virtue thus—­’Whoe’er thou art,
  Mortal, by whom I deign to be beheld
  In these my midnight walks; depart, and say,
  That henceforth I and my immortal train
  Forsake Britannia’s isle; who fondly stoops
  To vice, her favourite paramour.’  She spoke,
  And as she turned, her round and rosy neck,
  Her flowing train, and long ambrosial hair,
  Breathing rich odours, I enamoured view.

  O who will bear me then to western climes,
  Since virtue leaves our wretched land, to fields
  Yet unpolluted with Iberian swords,
  The isles of innocence, from mortal view
  Deeply retired, beneath a plantain’s shade,
  Where happiness and quiet sit enthroned. 
  With simple Indian swains, that I may hunt
  The boar and tiger through savannahs wild,
  Through fragrant deserts and through citron groves? 
  There fed on dates and herbs, would I despise
  The far-fetched cates of luxury, and hoards
  Of narrow-hearted avarice; nor heed
  The distant din of the tumultuous world.

JOHN GILBERT COOPER

  FROM THE POWER OF HARMONY

  THE HARMONY OF NATURE

  Hail, thrice hail! 
  Ye solitary seats, where Wisdom seeks
  Beauty and Good, th’ unseparable pair,
  Sweet offspring of the sky, those emblems fair
  Of the celestial cause, whose tuneful word
  From discord and from chaos raised this globe
  And all the wide effulgence of the day. 
  From him begins this beam of gay delight,
  When aught harmonious strikes th’ attentive mind;
  In him shall end; for he attuned the frame
  Of passive organs with internal sense,
  To feel an instantaneous glow of joy,
  When Beauty from her native seat of Heaven,
  Clothed in ethereal wildness, on our plains
  Descends, ere Reason with her tardy eye
  Can view the form divine; and through the world
  The heavenly boon to every being flows.

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