Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. III. The Eighteenth Century: Addison to Blake

Thomas Parnell (1679–1718)

Extract from A Hymn to Contentment

THE SILENT heart, which grief assails,

Treads soft and lonesome o’er the vales,

Sees daisies open, rivers run,

And seeks, as I have vainly done,

Amusing thought; but learns to know

That solitude ’s the nurse of woe.

No real happiness is found

In trailing purple o’er the ground;

Or in a soul exalted high,

To range the circuit of the sky,

Converse with stars above, and know

All nature in its forms below;

The rest it seeks, in seeking dies,

And doubts at last, for knowledge, rise.

Lovely, lasting peace, appear!

This world itself, if thou art here,

Is once again with Eden blest,

And man contains it in his breast.

’Twas thus, as under shade I stood,

I sung my wishes to the wood,

And lost in thought, no more perceiv’d

The branches whisper as they wav’d:

It seem’d, as all the quiet place

Confess’d the presence of the Grace.

When thus she spoke—‘Go rule thy will,

Bid thy wild passions all be still,

Know God—and bring thy heart to know

The joys which from religion flow:

Then every Grace shall prove its guest,

And I ’ll be there to crown the rest.’

Oh! by yonder mossy seat,

In my hours of sweet retreat,

Might I thus my soul employ,

With sense of gratitude and joy!

Rais’d as ancient prophets were,

In heavenly vision, praise, and prayer;

Pleasing all men, hurting none,

Pleas’d and bless’d with God alone:

Then while the gardens take my sight,

With all the colours of delight;

While silver waters glide along,

To please my ear, and court my song;

I ’ll lift my voice, and tune my string,

And thee, great source of nature, sing.

The sun that walks his airy way,

To light the world, and give the day;

The moon that shines with borrow’d light;

The stars that gild the gloomy night;

The seas that roll unnumber’d waves;

The wood that spreads its shady leaves;

The field whose ears conceal the grain,

The yellow treasure of the plain;

All of these, and all I see,

Should be sung, and sung by me:

They speak their maker as they can,

But want and ask the tongue of man.

Go search among your idle dreams,

Your busy or your vain extremes;

And find a life of equal bliss,

Or own the next begun in this.