So with superior boon may your rich soil, Exuberant, Nature's better blessings pour O'er every land, the naked nations clothe, And be th' exhaustless granary of a world. Nor only through the lenient air this change, Delicious, breathes: the penetrative sun, His force deep-darting to the dark retreat Of vegetation, sets the steaming power At large, to wander o'er the verdant earth, In various hues-but chiefly thee, gay green! Thou smiling Nature's universal robe,
United light and shade, where the sight dwells. With growing strength and ever new delight. From the moist meadow to the withered hill, Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs, And swells and deepens to the cherished eye. The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees, Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed In full luxuriance to the sighing gales, Where the deer rustle through the twining brake, And the birds sing concealed. At once, arrayed In all the colours of the flushing year
By Nature's swift and secret-working hand, The garden glows, and fills the liberal air With lavished fragrance, while the promised fruit Lies yet a little embryo, unperceived,
Within its crimson folds. Now from the town, Buried in smoke and sleep and noisome damps, Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields, Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops
From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze Of sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk;
Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains, And see the country, far diffused around,
One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower Of mingled blossoms, where the raptured eye Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.
What is this mighty breath, ye sages, say,
That in a powerful language, felt not heard, Instructs the fowl of heaven, and through their breast
These arts of love diffuses? What but God? Inspiring God! who boundless spirit all, And unremitting energy, pervades,
Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole. He ceaseless works alone, and yet alone Seems not to work; with such perfection framed Is this complex, stupendous scheme of things. But, though concealed, to every purer eye Th' informing author in his works appears: Chief, lovely Spring, in thee, and thy soft scenes, The smiling God is seen; while water, earth, And air attest his bounty; which exalts The brute creation to this finer thought, And annual melts their undesigning hearts Profusely thus in tenderness and joy.
Still let my song a nobler note assume, And sing th' infusive force of Spring on man, When heaven and earth, as if contending, vie To raise his being, and serene his soul. Can he forbear to join the general smile Of nature? Can fierce passions vex his breast, While every gale is peace, and every grove Is melody? Hence from the bounteous walks Of flowing Spring, ye sordid sons of earth, Hard, and unfeeling of another's woe; Or only lavish to yourselves; away!
But come, ye generous minds, in whose wide thought,
Of all his works, creative bounty burns With warmest beam!
[THE PLEASING SADNESS OF THE DECLINING YEAR]
But see! the fading many-coloured woods, Shade deepening over shade, the country round Imbrown, a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue from wan declining green
To sooty dark. These now the lonesome Muse, Low-whispering, lead into their leaf-strown walks, And give the season in its latest view.
Meantime, light-shadowing all, a sober calm Fleeces unbounded ether, whose least wave Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn The gentle current, while, illumined wide, The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun, And through their lucid veil his softened force Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time, For those whom wisdom and whom nature charm, To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd, And soar above this little scene of things, To tread low-thoughted Vice beneath their feet, To soothe the throbbing passions into peace, And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks. Thus solitary, and in pensive guise,
Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead
And through the saddened grove, where scarce is heard
One dying strain to cheer the woodman's toil. Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint, Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse; While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks, And each wild throat whose artless strains so late Swelled all the music of the swarming shades, Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock, With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes, And naught save chattering discord in their note. Oh, let not, aimed from some inhuman eye, The gun the music of the coming year Destroy, and harmless, unsuspecting harm, Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey, In mingled murder fluttering on the ground! The pale descending year, yet pleasing still, A gentler mood inspires: for now the leaf Incessant rustles from the mournful grove, Oft startling such as, studious, walk below, And slowly circles through the waving air; But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams, Till, choked and matted with the dreary shower, The forest walks, at every rising gale,
Roll wide the withered waste and whistle bleak. Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields, And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race Their sunny robes resign; even what remained Of stronger fruits fall from the naked tree; And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around, The desolated prospect thrills the soul.
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; 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: 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.
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