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From “The Seasons,” Conclusion
THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these | |
| Are but the varied God. The rolling year | |
| Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring | |
| Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. | |
| Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; | 5 |
| Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; | |
| And every sense and every heart is joy. | |
| Then comes thy glory, in the Summer months, | |
| With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun | |
| Shoots full perfection through the swelling year; | 10 |
| And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks, | |
| And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, | |
| By brooks and groves in hollow-whispering gales | |
| Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, | |
| And spreads a common feast for all that lives. | 15 |
| In Winter awful thou! with clouds and storms | |
| Around thee thrown, tempest o’er tempest rolled. | |
| Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind’s wing | |
| Riding sublime, thou bidd’st the world adore, | |
| And humblest nature with thy northern blast. | 20 |
| Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine, | |
| Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train, | |
| Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, | |
| Such beauty and beneficence combined; | |
| Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade; | 25 |
| And all so forming an harmonious whole, | |
| That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. | |
| But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze, | |
| Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand, | |
| That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres; | 30 |
| Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence | |
| The fair profusion that o’erspreads the Spring; | |
| Flings from the Sun direct the flaming day; | |
| Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth; | |
| And, as on Earth this grateful change revolves, | 35 |
| With transport touches all the springs of life. | |
| Nature, attend! join every living soul, | |
| Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, | |
| In adoration join; and, ardent, raise | |
| One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales, | 40 |
| Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes: | |
| O, talk of him in solitary glooms; | |
| Where, o’er the rock, the scarcely waving pine | |
| Fills the brown shade with a religious awe. | |
| And ye whose bolder note is heard afar, | 45 |
| Who shake the astonished world, lift high to Heaven | |
| The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. | |
| His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills; | |
| And let me catch it as I muse along. | |
| Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound; | 50 |
| Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze | |
| Along the vale; and thou, majestic main, | |
| A secret world of wonders in thyself, | |
| Sound his stupendous praise,—whose greater voice | |
| Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. | 55 |
| Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, | |
| In mingled clouds to him,—whose Sun exalts, | |
| Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. | |
| Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to him; | |
| Breathe your still song into the reaper’s heart, | 60 |
| As home he goes beneath the joyous Moon. | |
| Ye that keep watch in Heaven, as Earth asleep | |
| Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams, | |
| Ye constellations, while your angels strike, | |
| Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre. | 65 |
| Great source of day! best image here below | |
| Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide, | |
| From world to world, the vital ocean round, | |
| On Nature write with every beam his praise. | |
| The thunder rolls: be hushed the prostrate world; | 70 |
| While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn. | |
| Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks, | |
| Retain the sound; the broad responsive low, | |
| Ye valleys, raise; for the great Shepherd reigns, | |
| And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. | 75 |
| Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song | |
| Burst from the groves! and when the restless day, | |
| Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, | |
| Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm | |
| The listening shades, and teach the night his praise. | 80 |
| Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles, | |
| At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all, | |
| Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast, | |
| Assembled men to the deep organ join | |
| The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear, | 85 |
| At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass; | |
| And, as each mingling flame increases each, | |
| In one united ardor rise to Heaven. | |
| Or if you rather choose the rural shade, | |
| And find a fane in every sacred grove, | 90 |
| There let the shepherd’s flute, the virgin’s lay, | |
| The prompting seraph, and the poet’s lyre, | |
| Still sing the God of Seasons as they roll. | |
| For me, when I forget the darling theme, | |
| Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray | 95 |
| Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams, | |
| Or Winter rises in the blackening east,— | |
| Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more, | |
| And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat! | |
| Should fate command me to the farthest verge | 100 |
| Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, | |
| Rivers unknown to song,—where first the sun | |
| Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam | |
| Flames on the Atlantic isles,—’t is naught to me; | |
| Since God is ever present, ever felt, | 105 |
| In the void waste as in the city full; | |
| And where he vital breathes there must be joy. | |
| When even at last the solemn hour shall come, | |
| And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, | |
| I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers, | 110 |
| Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go | |
| Where Universal Love not smiles around, | |
| Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns; | |
| From seeming evil still educing good, | |
| And better thence again, and better still, | 115 |
| In infinite progression. But I lose | |
| Myself in him, in Light ineffable! | |
| Come, then, expressive Silence, muse his praise. | |
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