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

30

35

One general song! To HIM, ye vocal gales,

40

Breathe soft, whose SPIRIT in your freshness breathes.

O, 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,

45

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

50

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.

55

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.
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.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,

From world to world, the vital ocean round!
On Nature write with every beam His praise.
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.

75

Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song

Burst from the groves; and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,

Sweetest of birds, sweet Philomela, charm

The listening shades, and teach the night His praise !

80

Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,

At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! In swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join

The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to heaven.

Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove,

There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,

Still sing the GOD OF SEASONS, as they roll.
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,
Or Winter rises in the blackening East,
Be my tongue mute, may Fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart 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; 't is nought to me;
Since God is ever present, ever felt,

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105

In the void waste as in the city full;

And where HE vital spreads, there must be joy.
When even 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 sons ;*

110

*This verse, and the seven which precede it, formed no part of the HYMN in the octavo edition of 1738, or in those of an earlier date. They first appeared in the greatly enlarged edition of 1744, were repeated in that of 1746, two years prior to the author's decease, and have been retained in those subsequently edited by his friend Murdoch.

In all these impressions the 113th line terminates with the word sons, as it is here printed; but in some others of less authority, the last word in the line is suns. To the editors of those copies in which this change is made, Thomson's meaning may appear to have been that of suns, around which the attendant orbs of their systems were supposed severally to revolve. If this were the signification intended by the clause, we might expect to have had it more lucidly expressed by the

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.

115

poet who, when describing in elegiac strains the discoveries of the immortal Newton, has conveyed, to men of ordinary intellectual power, clear and definite ideas on a subject confessedly difficult of enunciation in the language of poetry.

But as sons is the accredited reading of both the editions which had the benefit of the author's last corrections and personal supervision, his meaning may be easily collected from the tenor of the former part of the paragraph, and may claim some affinity with that of Shakspeare's phrase in the Tempest :"

"the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit."

The chief difference in the epithets employed by the two poets seems to be, that the one denominates the inhabitants and garniture of our globe "all which it inherit;" and the other calls the intelligences in more distant worlds" the sons of all yon orbs."-EDIT.

END OF THE SEASONS.

THE

CASTLE OF INDOLENCE:

AN ALLEGORICAL POEM.

T