Then comes thy glory in the summer-months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:
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.
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 bidst the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force
Divine
Deepfelt, 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;
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;
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,
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,
Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness
breathes.
Oh, 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,
Who shake the astonished world, lift high
to heaven
Th’ 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;
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.
So 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,
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.