| |
| WHOSE 1 art, where human foot ne’er access found, | |
| Adorns, in wild diversity, the ground? | |
| Makes lonely walks to bloom confusedly gay, | |
| And with rich fragrance to perfume the day? | |
| Through all her lately flourishing increase, | 5 |
| When vegetation droops, canst thou release | |
| From wasting drought the summer? Will the rain | |
| Rush at thy bidding, down in floods amain? | |
| When the black clouds th’ impetuous torrent pour, | |
| Canst thou in middle-deluge stop the shower? | 10 |
| Whose thunder, when fierce flames the welkin wrap, | |
| Stuns nature’s ear with the tremendous clap? | |
| Didst thou the rainbow fix? its hues impart— | |
| Those hues that distance the exploits of art? | |
| Who generates the hoary frost? and who | 15 |
| Bespangles morning with his orient dew? | |
| Hath mist a sire? canst thou congeal the main? | |
| From whom descend the pearly streams of rain? | |
| Dost thou ordain the seasons of the year? | |
| And govern all the changes of the air? | 20 |
| Who gives the live-green earth its vernal hue? | |
| Dost thou the odor of the fields renew? | |
| Ripen the harvest? drive the eastern blast? | |
| And lay the opulence of autumn waste? | |
| Give meads with yellow pomp to cheer the sight? | 25 |
| Or deck in majesty of winter’s white? | |
| By whom instructed do the planets know, | |
| Where orient or meridian beams must glow? | |
| Who taught Arcturus, round the northern pole, | |
| His destined circuit with his suns to roll? | 30 |
| Or Mazaroth to wind athwart the night, | |
| In his appointed hours, his length of light? | |
| When th’ early Pleiades benignly gleam, | |
| Canst thou in bands of crystal bind the stream? | |
| The beauties of th’ enamell’d spring withhold, | 35 |
| And blast the foliage with autumnal cold? | |
| Oppress’d by Sirius, when the fields complain, | |
| His unpropitious influence restrain? | |
| With vernal showers the parching wind allay, | |
| And chase the fervor of th’ inclement day? | 40 |
| Or when Orion glares upon thy view, | |
| Make earth to bloom and vegetate anew? * * * * * | |
| Breathes the minutest rover of the air, | |
| Held by thy power, or nourish’d by thy care? | |
| Who feeds the ravens, when the croaking brood | 45 |
| Raise hoarsely querulous their plaint to God? | |
| Didst thou the ostrich clothe with plumes so neat, | |
| Who leaves her eggs exposed to heedless feet? | |
| Hatch’d by the genial influence of the sun, | |
| Alone, the unfledged brood are left to run. | 50 |
| In flight she scorns the rider and his steed; | |
| Through eddies of the sand upspurn’d, her speed | |
| Impetuously she skims; than winds more fleet; | |
| She triumphs in th’ alertness of her feet. | |
| The peacock view, still exquisitely fair, | 55 |
| When clouds forsake, and when invest the air: | |
| His gems now brightened by a noontide ray; | |
| He proudly waves his feathers to the day. | |
| A strut, majestically slow, assumes, | |
| And glories in the beauty of his plumes. | 60 |
| The hawk, before autumnal tempests rise, | |
| Pursues the summer through the southern skies: | |
| Knows she from bleak inclement months to flee, | |
| And find perpetual August, taught by thee? | |
| Who lifts the eagle on her lofty way, | 65 |
| To rove exulting in a cloudless day? | |
| On high and craggy cliffs she dwells alone; | |
| Their strength remains impregnably her own: | |
| With darting haste, behold her ample size, | |
| Full to th’ enjoy’d, though distant victim hies: | 70 |
| Couch’d horrid now she nimbly hovers o’er | |
| Her untorn prey, in raptures of its gore. | |
| Back to her nest she shapes her upward flight, | |
| Her young suck up the blood, with dire delight. | |
