And renovation of a faded world, See nought to wonder at. Should God again, 125 As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race How would the world admire! But speaks it less His moment when to sink and when to rise, 130 Age after age, than to arrest his course? Where now the vital energy, that mov'd While summer was, the pure and subtle lymph 135 Through th' imperceptible meand'ring veins Of leaf and flow'r? It sleeps; and th' icy touch A cold stagnation on th' intestine tide. But let the months go round, a few short months, 140 And all shall be restor'd. These naked shoots, Barren as lances, among which the wind Makes wintry musick, sighing as it goes, Shall put their graceful foliage on again, And, more aspiring, and with ampler spread, 145 Shall boast new charms, and more than they have lost. Then each in its peculiar honours clad, Shall publish even to the distant eye Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich In streaming gold; syringa, iv'ry pure; 150 The scentless and the scented rose; this red And of a humbler growth, the other* tall, And throwing up into the darkest gloom Of neighb'ring cypress, or more sable yew, 155 160 Which hue she most approv'd, she chose them all; Of flowers, like flies clothing her slender rods, The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, 165 170 175 These have been, and these shall be in their day; Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load, And flush into variety again. 180 From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, In heav'nly truth; evincing, as she makes 185 Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms, He sets the bright procession on its 190 way, And marshals all the order of the year; He marks the bounds, which winter may not pass, Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ, 195 And, ere one flow'ry season fades and dies, Some say that in the origin of things, When all creation started into birth, The infant elements receiv'd a law 200 Of that controlling ordinance they move, From which they swerv'd not since. That under force And need not His immediate hand who first Prescrib'd their course, to regulate it now. 205 Th' encumbrance of his own concerns, and spare The great artificer of all that moves The stress of a continual act, the pain 210 So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems, That knows no measure, by the scanty rule So vast in its demands, unless impell'd 215 To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force, And under pressure of some conscious cause? 220 The Lord of all, himself through all diffus'd, Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire, 225 And whose beneficence no charge exhausts. 230 Him blind antiquity profan'd, not serv'd, With self-taught rites, and under various names, Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan, And Flora, and Vertumnus; peopling earth With tutelary goddesses and gods, 235 That were not; and commending as they would To each some province, garden, field, or grove. Though winter had been none, had man been true 240 245 250 255 And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream 260 Recov'ring fast its liquid musick, prove. Who, then, that has a mind well strung and tun'd To contemplation, and within his reach A scene so friendly to his fav'rite task, Would waste attention at the checker'd board. 265 His host of wooden warriours to and fro 270 Across a velvet level, feel a joy Akin to rapture, when the bauble finds Its destin'd goal, of difficult access. Nor deems he wiser him, who gives his noon 275 280 And sooth'd into a dream, that he discerns 285 Frequents the crowded auction station'd there With glass at eye, and catalogue in hand, Here unmolested, through whatever sign 290 295 300 And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook These shades are all my own. The tim'rous hare, 306 Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove, unalarm'd, 310 That age or injury has hollow'd deep, Where, on his bed of wool and matted leaves, |