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(From Cooper’s Hill)
MY eye, descending from the hill, surveys | |
| Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays. | |
| Thames! the most loved of all the Ocean’s sons, | |
| By his old sire, to his embraces runs, | |
| Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, | 5 |
| Like mortal life to meet eternity; | |
| Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, | |
| Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold: | |
| His genuine and less guilty wealth to explore, | |
| Search not his bottom, but survey his shore, | 10 |
| O’er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing | |
| And hatches plenty for the ensuing spring; | |
| Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay, | |
| Like mothers which their infants overlay; | |
| Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave, | 15 |
| Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave. | |
| No unexpected inundations spoil | |
| The mower’s hopes, nor mock the ploughman’s toil; | |
| But godlike his unwearied bounty flows; | |
| First loves to do, then loves the good he does. | 20 |
| Nor are his blessings to his banks confined, | |
| But free and common as the sea or wind; | |
| When he, to boast or to disperse his stores, | |
| Full of the tributes of his grateful shores, | |
| Visits the world, and in his flying towers | 25 |
| Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours; | |
| Finds wealth where ’t is, bestows it where it wants, | |
| Cities in deserts, woods in cities, plants. | |
| So that to us no thing, no place, is strange, | |
| While his fair bosom is the world’s Exchange. | 30 |
| O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream | |
| My great example, as it is my theme! | |
| Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull; | |
| Strong without rage, without o’erflowing full. | |
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