The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach Betoken glad. Lo! now, apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth, and coloured air, He looks in boundless majesty abroad;
And sheds the shining day, that burnished plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams, High-gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer Light! Of all material beings first, and best !
Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe ! Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun!
Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen Shines out thy Maker! may I sing of thee?
'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force, As with a chain indissoluble bound, Thy System rolls entire: from the far bourne Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round Of thirty years; to Mercury, whose disk Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye, Lost in the neat effulgence of thy blaze.
INFORMER of the planetary train !
Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous orbs Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead, And not, as now, the green abodes of life! How many forms of being wait on thee, Inhaling 'spirit; from th' unfettered mind, By thee sublimed, down to the daily race, The mixing myriads of thy setting beam.
The vegetable world is also thine, Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede That waits thy throne, as thro' thy vast domain,
Annual, along the bright ecliptic road, In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime. Meantime th' expecting nations, circled gay With all the various tribes of foodful earth, Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up
A common hymn: while, round thy beaming car, High-seen, the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance Harmonious knit, the rosy-fingered Hours, The Zephyrs floating loose, the timely Rains, Of bloom ethereal the light-footed Dews, And softened into joy the surly Storms.
These, in successive turn, with lavish hand,
Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower,
Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch, From land to land is flushed the vernal year.
Nor to the surface of enlightened earth, Graceful with hills and dales, and leafy woods, Her liberal tresses, is thy force confined : But, to the bowelled cavern darting deep,
The mineral kinds confess thy mighty power.
Effulgent, hence the veiny marble shines;
Hence Labour draws his tools; hence burnished War
Gleams on the day; the nobler works of Peace
Hence bless mankind, and generous Commerce binds The round of nations in a golden chain.
The unfruitful rock itself, impregned by thee,. 140 In dark retirement forms the lucid stone.
The lively Diamond drinks thy purest rays,
Collected light, compact; that, polished bright, And all its native lustre let abroad,
Dares, as it sparkles on the fair-one's breast,
With vain ambition emulate her eyes.
At thee the Ruby lights its deepening glow, And with a waving radiance inward flames. From thee the Sapphire, solid ether, takes Its hue cerulean; and of evening tinct, The purple-streaming Amethyst is thine. With thy own smile the yellow Topaz burns. Nor deeper verdure dyes the robe of Spring, When first she gives it to the southern gale, Than the green Emerald shows. But, all combined, 155 Thick thro' the whitening Opål play thy beams;
Or, flying several from its surface, form A trembling variance of revolving hues, As the site varies in the gazer's hand.
The very dead creation, from thy touch, Assumes a mimic life. By thee refined, In brighter mazes the relucent stream Plays o'er the mead. The precipice abrupt, Projecting horror on the blackened flood, Softens at thy return. The desert joys Wildly, thro' all his melancholy bounds. Rude ruins glitter; and the briny deep, Seen from some pointed promontory's top, Far to the blue horizon's utmost verge, Restless, reflects a floating gleam. But this, And all the much-transported Muse can sing, Are to thy beauty, dignity, and use, Unequal far; great delegated source Of light, and life, and grace, and joy below!
How shall I then attempt to sing of HIM! Who, LIGHT HIMSELF, in uncreated light Invested deep, dwells awfully retired From mortal eye, or angel's purer ken ;-
Whose single smile has, from the first of time, Filled, overflowing, all those lamps of Heaven, That beam forever thro' the boundless sky : But, should he hide his face, th' astonished sun, And all th' extinguished stars, would loosening reel Wide from their spheres, and Chaos come again. And yet was every faltering tongue of Man, ALMIGHTY FATHER ! silent in thy praise; Thy works themselves would raise a general voice, Even in the depth of solitary woods
By human foot untrod; proclaim thy power, And to the quire celestial THEE resound,
Th' eternal cause, support, and end of all !
To me be Nature's volume broad-displayed; And to peruse its all-instructing page, Or, haply catching inspiration thence, Some easy passage, raptured, to translate, My sole delight; as thro' the falling glooms Pensive I stray, or with the rising dawn On Fancy's eagle-wing excursive soar.
Now, flaming up the heavens, the potent sun Melts into limpid air the high-raised clouds, And morning fogs, that hovered round the hills In party-coloured bands; till wide unveiled
The face of Nature shines, from where earth seems, Far-stretched around, to meet the bending sphere.
Half in a blush of clustering roses lost, Dew-dropping Coolness to the shade retires; There, on the verdant turf, or flowery bed, By gelid founts and careless rills to muse; While tyrant Heat, dispreading thro' the sky, With rapid sway, his burning influence darts.
On Man, and beast, and herb, and tepid stream. Who can unpitying see the flowery race, Shed by the morn, their new-flushed bloom resign, Before the parching beam? So fade the fair, When fevers revel thro' their azure veins.. But one, the lofty follower of the sun,
Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves,
Drooping all night; and when he warm returns, Points her enamoured bosom to his ray.
Home, from his morning task, the swain retreats; 220 His flock before him stepping to the fold: While the full-uddered mother lows around The cheerful cottage, then expecting food, The food of innocence, and health! The daw, The rook and magpie, to the grey-grown oaks That the calm village in their verdant arms, Sheltering, embrace, direct their lazy flight; Where on the mingling boughs they sit embowered, All the hot noon, till cooler hours arise.
Faint, underneath, the household fowls convene;
And, in a corner of the buzzing shade,
The house-dog, with the vacant greyhound, ties, Out-stretched, and sleepy. In his slumbers one Attacks the nightly thief, and one exults
O'er hill and 'dale; till, wakened by the wasp, They starting snap. Nor shall the Muse disdain To let the little noisy summer-race
Live in her lay, and flutter through her song: Not mean, tho' simple; to the sun allied, From him they draw their animating fire.
Waked by his warmer ray, the reptile young Come winged abroad; by the light air upborne,
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