THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind. Are but the varied God. The rolling Such beauty and beneficence combined; Shade, unperceived, so softening into year Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing spring shade; And all so forming an harmonious whole, Thy Beauty walks, thy Tenderness and That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. Love. Wide flush the fields; the softening air is But wandering oft, with brute unconscious Echo the mountains round; the forest Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty smiles; And every sense, and every heart, is joy. Then comes thy Glory in the summer months, Hand, That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres; Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence With light and heat refulgent. Then thy The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Sun spring; Shoots full perfection through the swell- Flings from the sun direct the flaming day; ing year; And oft thy Voice in dreadful thunder Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest speaks, forth; And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling And, as on earth this grateful change reeve, volves, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whisper- With transport touches all the springs of ing gales. Thy Bounty shines in autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that lives. life. Nature, attend! join, every living soul Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, In adoration join; and, ardent, raise In winter awful Thou! with clouds and One general song! To Him, ye vocal Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness roll'd, breathes: Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms; Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving wing, Riding sublime, Thou bid'st the World adore, And humblest Nature with thy northern blast. 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 | Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless to heaven song The impetuous song, and say from whom Burst from the groves; and when the restyou rage. rills; less day, His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm The listening shades, and teach the night His praise. And let me catch it as I muse along. Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale; and thou, majestic main, 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 Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings The long-resounding voice, oft breaking fall. clear, Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, At solemn pauses, through the swelling and flowers, In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts, bass; And, as each mingling flame increases each, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose In one united ardor rise to heaven. pencil paints. Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave, to Him; Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart, Or if you rather choose the rural shade, As home he goes beneath the joyous The prompting seraph, and the poet's Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth Still sing the God of Seasons, as they asleep roll. Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest For me, when I forget the darling theme, Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd Since God is ever present, ever felt, reigns, And His unsuffering kingdom yet will And where He vital breathes, there must When even at last the solemn hour shall Summer is come, for every spray now Come, then, expressive Silence, muse His And thus I see among these pleasant The turtle to her make hath told her And skies enamell'd with both Indies' Or moon at night in jetty chariot roll'd, The stately comeliness of forests old, The sport of floods which would themselves embrace? What doth it serve to hear the sylvans' songs, The wanton merle, the nightingale's sad strains, Which in dark shades seem to deplore my wrongs? For what doth serve all that this world contains, Sith she, for whom those once to me were dear, No part of them can have now with me here? WILLIAM DRUMMOND. CHORUS. FROM "ATALANTA IN CALYDON." WHEN the hounds of spring are on win ter's traces, Oh that man's heart were as fire, and could spring to her, Fire, or the strength of the streams that For the stars and the winds are unto her And the south-west wind and the west For winter's rains and ruins are over, wins; And time remember'd is grief forgotten, Blossom by blossom the spring begins. From leaf to flower and flower to fruit; And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire, The mother of months in meadow or And the oat is heard above the lyre, plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, And the hoof'd heel of a satyr crushes And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night, For the Thracian ships and the foreign Follow with dancing and fill with de The Mænad and the Bassarid; And screen from seeing and leave in sight Over her eyebrows, shading her eyes; Her bright breast shortening into sighs; The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves, Round the feet of the day and the feet But the berried ivy catches and cleaves of the night. |