Animals and Nature

God made the country, and man made the town.

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm.

The watchdog’s voice that bay’d the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind. 6

The man recover’d of the bite, The dog it was that died.

The dog, to gain some private ends, Went mad, and bit the man.

And in that town a dog was found, As many dogs there be, Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, And curs of low degree.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffrey, For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.

Let James rejoice with the Skuttle-Fish who foils his foe by the effusion of his ink.

Far from the sun and summer-gale, In thy green lap was Nature’s Darling 1 laid.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn.

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r The moping owl does to the moon complain.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.

A fav’rite has no friend!

What female heart can gold despise? What cat’s averse to fish?

Here Skugg lies snug As a bug in a rug.

I am his Highness’ 8 dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor’d mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His soul proud Science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way; Yet simple nature to his hope has giv’n, Behind the cloud-topp’d hill, an humbler heav’n.

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just rais’d to shed his blood.

Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain, Here earth and water seem to strive again, Not chaos-like together crush’d and bruis’d, But, as the world, harmoniously confus’d: Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree.

Where’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where’er you tread, the blushing flow’rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

Creation sleeps! ’Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end.