On Taste

Taste is from heaven,
An inspiration nature can't bestow;
Though nature's beauties, where a taste is given,
Warm the ideas of the soul to flow
With that intense, enthusiastic glow
That throbs the bosom, when the curious eye
Glances on beauteous things that give delight,
Objects of earth, or air, or sea, or sky,
That bring the very senses in the sight
To relish what we see:—but all is night
To the gross clown—nature's unfolded book,
As on he blunders, never strikes his eye;
Pages of landscape, tree, and flower, and brook,
Like bare blank leaves, he turns unheeded by.