Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/104

 On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams, High-gleaming from afar. Prime chearer, Light! Of all material beings first, and best! Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe! Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun! Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen Shines out thy Maker! may I sing of thee?

' by thy secret, strong, attractive force, As with a chain indissoluble bound, Thy System rolls entire: from the far bourne Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round Of thirty years; to Mercury, whofe disk Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye, Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.

of the planetary train! Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous orbs Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead, And not, as now, the green abodes of life! How many forms of being wait on thee, Inhaling spirit; from th' unfetter'd mind, By thee sublim'd, down to the daily race, The mixing myriads of thy setting beam.

vegetable world is also thine, Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede That waits thy throne, as thro' thy vast domain, Annual, along the bright ecliptic road, In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime. Mean-time th' expecting nations, circled gay With all the various tribes of foodful earth, Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up A common hymn: while round thy beaming car. High-