Joseph Warton, from “The Enthusiast: or The Lover of Nature”

All-beauteous Nature! by thy boundless charms 
Oppressed, O where shall I begin thy praise, 
Where turn th’ ecstatic eye, how ease my breast 
That pants with wild astonishment and love!
Dark forests, and the op’ning lawn, refreshed 
With ever-gushing brooks, hill, meadow, dale, 
The balmy bean-field, the gay-coloured close, 
So sweetly interchanged, the lowing ox, 
The playful lamb, the distant water-fall 
Now faintly heard, now swelling with the breeze, 
The sound of pastoral reed from hazel-bower, 
The choral birds, the neighing steed, that snuffs 
His dappled mate, stung with intense desire, 
The ripened orchard when the ruddy orbs 
Betwixt the green leaves blush, the azure skies, 
The cheerful sun that through earth's vitals pours 
Delight and health and heat; all, all conspire 
To raise, to soothe, to harmonise the mind, 
To lift on wings of praise, to the great Sire 
Of being and of beauty, at whose nod 
Creation started from the gloomy vault 
Of dreary Chaos, while the grisly king 
Murmured to feel his boisterous power confined.
	What are the lays of artful Addison,
Coldly correct, to Shakespeare’s warblings wild?
Whom on the winding Avon's willowed banks 
Fair Fancy found, and bore the smiling babe 
To a close cavern (still the shepherds show 
The sacred place, whence with religious awe 
They hear, returning from the field at eve, 
Strange whisp’rings of sweet music through the air):
Here, as with honey gathered from the rock, 
She ted the little prattler, and with songs 
Oft soothed his wond’ring ears; with deep delight 
On her soft lap he sat, and caught the sounds.

Joseph Warton, 1722-1800 – “The Enthusiast: or The Lover of Nature” from The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse