A Hymn

THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these,Are but the varied God. The rolling yearIs full of thee. Forth in the pleasing SpringThy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.Wide-flush the fields; the softening air is balm;5Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;And every sense, and every heart is joy.Then comes thy glory in the Summer-months,With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sunShoots full perfection thro' the swelling year:10And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfin'd,And spreads a common feast for all that lives.15In Winter awful Thou! with clouds and stormsAround Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,Riding sublime, Thou bidst the world adore,And humblest Nature with Thy northern blast. 20

Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,Deep-felt, in these appear! a simple train,Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,

Such beauty and beneficence combin'd;Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade;25And all so forming an harmonious whole;That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand,That, ever-busy, wheels the silent spheres;30Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thenceThe 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,35With 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, raiseOne general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,40Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes:Oh talk of Him in solitary glooms!Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely-waving pineFills the brown shade with a religious awe.And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, 45Who shake th' astonish'd world, lift high to heavenTh' 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; 50Ye softer floods, that lead the humid mazeAlong the vale; and thou, majestic main,A secret world of wonders in thyself,Sound his stupendous praise; whose greater voiceOr bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. 55Soft-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, 60As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleepUnconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,Ye constellations, while your angels strike,Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.65Great source of day! best image here belowOf 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;70While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,Retain the sound: the broad responsive lowe,Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns;And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.75Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless songBurst from the groves; and when the restless day,Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charmThe listening shades, and teach the night his praise.80Ye 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 joinThe long-resounding voice, oft-breaking clear,85At solemn pauses, thro' the swelling base;And, as each mingling flame increases each,In one united ardor rise to heaven.Or if you rather chuse the rural shade,And find a fane in every sacred grove;90There 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,95Russets 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 verge100Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,Rivers unknown to song; where first the sunGilds Indian mountains, or his setting beamFlames on th' Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to me;Since God is ever present, ever felt, 105In 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 chearful will obey! there, with new powers,110Will rising wonders sing; I cannot goWhere Universal Love not smiles around,Sustaining all yon orbs and all their sons,From seeming Evil still educing Good,And Better thence again, and Better still,115In infinite progression. ———— But I loseMyself in Him, in Light ineffable!Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise.