Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/193

 Empires subvers'd, when ruling fate has struck Th' unalterable hour: even Nature's self Is deem'd to totter on the brink of time. Not so the Man of philosophic eye, And inspect sage; the waving brightness he Curious surveys, inquisitive to know The causes, and materials, yet unfix'd, Of this appearance beautiful and new.

black, and deep, the night begins to fall, A shade immense. Sunk in the quenching gloom, Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth. Order confounded lies; all beauty void; Distinction lost: and gay variety One universal blot: such the fair power Of light, to kindle and create the whole. Drear is the state of the benighted wretch, Who then bewildered wanders through the dark, Full of pale fancies, and chimeras huge; Nor visited by one directive ray, From cottage streaming, or from airy hall. Perhaps impatient as he stumbles on, Struck from the root of slimy rushes, blue, The wild-fire scatters round, or gathered trails A length of flame deceitful o'er the moss; Whither decoyed by the fantastic blaze, Now lost and now renewed, he sinks absorpt, Rider and horse, amid the miry gulph: While still, from day to day, his pining wife, And plaintive children his return await, In wild conjecture lost. At other times, Sent by the better Genius of the night, Innoxious, gleaming on the horse's mane, The meteor sits, and shews the narrow path, That