Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/111

 In vain, or not for admirable ends. Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce His works unwise, of which the smallest part Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind? As if upon a full-proportion'd dome, On swelling Columns heav'd, the pride of art! A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads An inch around, with blind presumption bold, Should dare to tax the structure of the whole. And lives the Man, whose universal eye Has swept at once th' unbounded scheme of things: Mark'd their dependance so, and firm accord, As with unfaultering accent to conclude That This evaileth nought? has any seen The mighty chain of beings, lessening down From to the brink Of dreary Nothing, desolate abyss! From which astonish'd thought, recoiling, turns? Till then alone let zealous praise ascend, And hymns of holy wonder, to that , Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds, As on our smiling eyes his servant-sun.

in yon stream of light, a thousand ways, Upward, and downward, thwarting, and convolv'd, The quivering nations sport; till, tempest-wing'd, Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day. Even so luxurious Men, unheeding, pass An idle summer-life in fortune's shine, A season's glitter! thus they flutter on From toy to toy, from vanity to vice; Till, blown away by death, oblivonoblivion [sic] comes Behind, and strikes them from the book of life.

swarms the village o'er the jovial mead: The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil, Rh