A HYMN.

THESE, as they change, ALMIGHTY FATHER, these,
Are but the varied GOD. The rolling year
Is full of THEE. Forth in the pleasing Spring
THY beauty walks, THY tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is baim;
Echo 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 sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And 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 unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.

In Winter awful THOU! With clouds and storms
Around THEE thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, THOυ bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest Nature with THY northern blast.
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 combined;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And 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 ;
Works in the secret deep; shoots steaming thence
The 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,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! Join every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,

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In adoration join, and ardent raise

One general song! To HIM, ye vocal gales,

Breathe soft, whose SPIRIT in your freshness breathes.

0, talk of HIM in solitary glooms,

Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving 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 to heaven
The' 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;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,

Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Soft 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,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of 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,
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound; the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise for the GREAT SHEPHERD reigns,
And His unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song
Burst from the groves; and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds, sweet Philomela, charm

The listening shades, and teach the night His praise!
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,

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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
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to heaven.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove,
There 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
Russets 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 verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on the Atlantic isles; 't is nought to me;
Since God is ever present, ever felt,

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In 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 cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go
Where 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,
In infinite progression.But I lose

Myself in HIM, in LIGHT INEFFABLE!

Come then, expressive Silence, muse His praise.

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SHALL the great soul of Newton quit this earth,
To mingle with his stars; and every Muse,
Astonish'd into silence, shun the weight
Of honours due to his illustrious name?

But what can man? Even now the sons of light,
In strains high-warbled to seraphic lyre,

Hail his arrival on the coast of bliss.

Yet am not I deterr'd, though high the theme,
And sung to harps of angels: for with you,

Ethereal Flames, ambitious I aspire

In Nature's general symphony to join.

And what new wonders can ye show your guest?
Who, while on this dim spot, where mortals toil
Clouded in dust, from motion's simple laws,
Could trace the secret hand of Providence
Wide-working through this universal frame.
Have ye not listen'd while he bound the suns
And planets to their spheres? the' unequal task
Of human-kind till then. Oft had they roll'd
O'er erring man the year, and oft disgraced
The pride of Schools, before their course was known
Full in its causes and effects to him,

All-piercing sage! who sat not down and dream'd
Romantic schemes, defended by the din

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Of specious words, and tyranny of names;
But, bidding his amazing mind attend,
And with heroic patience years on years
Deep-searching, saw at last the system dawn,
And shine, of all his race, on him alone.

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What were his raptures then! how pure! how strong! 30
And what the triumphs of old Greece and Rome,
By his diminish'd, but the pride of boys

In some small fray victorious? when, instead
Of shatter'd parcels of this earth usurp'd

By violence unmanly, and sore deeds
Of cruelty and blood, Nature herself
Stood all-subdued by him, and open laid
Her every latent glory to his view,
All-intellectual eye, our solar round

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First gazing through, he by the blended power
Of gravitation and projection saw

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The whole in silent harmony revolve.
From unassisted vision hid, the moons
To cheer remoter planets numerous form'd,

By him in all their mingled tracts were seen.

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He also fix'd our wandering queen of night,

Whether she wanes into a scanty orb,

Or, waxing broad, with her pale shadowy light,
In a soft deluge overflows the sky.

Pours on the eye, or astronomic tube,
Far-stretching, snatches from the dark abyss,
Or such as farther in successive skies
To fancy shine alone, at his approach
Blazed into suns, the living centre each
Of an harmonious system; all combined
And ruled unerring by that single power

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Which draws the stone projected to the ground.