The thick sprung reeds, which wat'ry marshes yield, Seem polish'd lances in a hostile field; The stag, in limpid currents, with surprise, Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise.
The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine, Glaz'd over, in the freezing ether shine.
The frighted birds, the rattling branches shun, Which wave and glitter in the distant sun. Then, if a sudden gust of wind arise, The brittle forest into atoms flies;
The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends, And in a spangled shower the prospect ends.
WITH frozen locks, and wrinkled brow, Traveller, whence comest thou? From Lapland woods and hills of frost, By the rapid rein-deer crost;
Where tapering grows the gloomy fir, And the stunted juniper;
Where the wild hare and the crow, Whiten in surrounding snow ;
Where the shivering huntsmen tear
His fur coat from the grim white bear; Where the wolf and arctic fox
Prowl among the lonely rocks;
And tardy suns to deserts drear, Give days and nights of half a year; From icy oceans, where the whale Tosses in foam his lashing tail;
Where the snorting sea-horse shows His ivory teeth, in grinning rows; Where, tumbling in their seal-skin boat, Fearless the hardy fishers float; And, from teeming seas, supply The food, their barren plains deny.
THESE, as they change, Almighty Father! these Are but the varied God, The rolling year Is full of Thee. Forth, in the pleasant 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 whirlwinds wing, Riding sublime, Thou bidst the world adore, And humblest nature with thy northern blast. 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 astonish'd 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! 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. 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 As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. The thunder rolls; be hush'd the prostrate world!
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. For me, when I forget the darling theme, Whether the blossom blow, the Summer ray Russet the plain, inspiring Autumn gleam, Or Winter rise through all the darken'd air, Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more; And dead to joy, my heart forget to beat, Should fate command me to the farthest verge 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; 'tis nought to me; Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste, as in the city full;
And where He, vital, breathes, there must be joy. When, e'en at last, the solemn hour shall come, And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, I cheerful will obey: there, with new powers, 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 In infinite progression. But I lose Myself in Him, in Light ineffable.
Come then, expressive Silence! muse his praise.
SEE through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth; Above, how high, progressive life may go! Around, how wide! how deep extend below! Vast chain of being which from God began; Natures etherial, angel, human, man; Beast, bird, fish, insect; what no eye can see, No glass can reach from Infinite to thee, From thee to nothing. On superior powers Were we to press, inferior might on our's: Or in the full creation leave a void,.
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd. From nature's chain, whatever link you strike, Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike; And if each system in gradation roll Alike essential to the amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all That system only, but the whole must fall. Let earth, unbalanc'd, from her orbit fly, Planets and suns rush lawless through the sky; Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd, Being on being wreck'd, and world on world; Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod; And nature tremble to the throne of God. All this dread order break! for whom? for thee, Vile worm? Oh madness! pride! impiety! All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul;
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