The Seasons Read Online

The whole concluding with the praise of philosophy.

From brightening fields of ether fair-disclosed,

Child of the sun, refulgent Summer comes

In pride of youth, and felt through nature's depth:

He comes, attended by the sultry hours

And ever-fanning breezes on his way;

While from his ardent look the turning Spring

Averts her blushful face, and earth and skies

All-smiling to his hot dominion leaves.

Hence let me haste into the mid-wood shade,

Where scarce a sunbeam wanders through the gloom,

And on the dark-green grass, beside the brink

Of haunted stream that by the roots of oak

Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large

And sing the glories of the circling year.

Come, Inspiration! from thy hermit-seat,

By mortal seldom found: may fancy dare,

From thy fixed serious eye and raptured glance

Shot on surrounding Heaven, to steal one look

Creative of the poet, every power

Exalting to an ecstasy of soul.

And thou, my youthful Muse's early friend,

In whom the human graces all unite –

Pure light of mind and tenderness of heart,

Genius and wisdom, the gay social sense

By decency chastised, goodness and wit

In seldom-meeting harmony combined,

Unblemished honour, and an active zeal

For Britain's glory, liberty, and man:

O Dodington! attend my rural song,

Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line,

And teach me to deserve thy just applause.

With what an awful world-revolving power

Were first the unwieldy planets launched along

The illimitable void! – thus to remain,

Amid the flux of many thousand years

That oft has swept the toiling race of men,

And all their laboured monuments away,

Firm, unremitting, matchless in their course;

To the kind-tempered change of night and day,

And of the seasons ever stealing round,

Minutely faithful: such the all-perfect Hand

That poised, impels, and rules the steady whole!

When now no more the alternate Twins are fired,

And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,

Short is the doubtful empire of the night;

And soon, observant of approaching day,

The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews,

At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east;

Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow,

And, from before the lustre of her face,

White break the clouds away. With quickened step,

Brown night retires. Young day pours in apace,

And opens all the lawny prospect wide.

The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top

Swell on the sight and brighten with the dawn.

Blue through the dusk the smoking currents shine;

And from the bladed field the fearful hare

Limps awkward; while along the forest glade

The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze

At early passenger. Music awakes,

The native voice of undissembled joy;

And thick around the woodland hymns arise.

Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves

His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells,

And from the crowded fold in order drives

His flock to taste the verdure of the morn.

Falsely luxurious, will not man awake,

And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy

The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,

To meditation due and sacred song?

For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?

To lie in dead oblivion, losing half

The fleeting moments of too short a life –

Total extinction of the enlightened soul!

Or else, to feverish vanity alive,

Wildered, and tossing through distempered dreams!

Who would in such a gloomy state remain

Longer than nature craves; when every muse

And every blooming pleasure wait without

To bless the wildly-devious morning walk?

But yonder comes the powerful king of day

Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,

The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow

Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach

Betoken glad. Lo! now, apparent all,

Aslant the dew-bright earth and coloured air,

He looks in boundless majesty abroad,

And sheds the shining day, that burnished plays

On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams

High-gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer, Light!

Of all material beings first and best!

Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe,

Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt

In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun!

Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen

Shines out thy Maker! may I sing of thee?

'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force,

As with a chain indissoluble bound,

Thy system rolls entire – from the far bourne

Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round

Of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk

Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,

Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.

Informer of the planetary train!

Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous orbs

Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead,

And not, as now, the green abodes of life!

How many forms of being wait on thee,

Inhaling spirit, from the unfettered mind,

By thee sublimed, down to the daily race,

The mixing myriads of thy setting beam!

The vegetable world is also thine,

Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede

That waits thy throne, as through thy vast domain,

Annual, along the bright ecliptic road

In world-rejoicing state it moves sublime.

Meantime the expecting nations, circled gay

With all the various tribes of foodful earth,

Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up

A common hymn: while, round thy beaming car,

High-seen, the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance

Harmonious knit, the rosy-fingered hours,

The zephyrs floating loose, the timely rains,

Of bloom ethereal the light-footed dews,

And, softened into joy, the surly storms.

These, in successive turn, with lavish hand

Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower,

Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch,

From land to land is flushed the vernal year.

Nor to the surface of enlivened earth,

Graceful with hills and dales, and leafy woods,

Her liberal tresses, is thy force confined;

But, to the bowelled cavern darting deep,

The mineral kinds confess thy mighty power.

Effulgent hence the veiny marble shines;

Hence labour draws his tools; hence burnished war

Gleams on the day; the nobler works of peace

Hence bless mankind; and generous commerce binds

The round of nations in a golden chain.

The unfruitful rock itself, impregned by thee,

In dark retirement forms the lucid stone.

The lively diamond drinks thy purest rays,

Collected light compact; that, polished bright,

And all its native lustre let abroad,

Dares, as it sparkles on the fair one's breast,

With vain ambition emulate her eyes.

At thee the ruby lights its deepening glow,

And with a waving radiance inward flames.

From thee the sapphire, solid ether, takes

Its hue cerulean; and, of evening tinct,

The purple-streaming amethyst is thine

With thy own smile the yellow topaz burns;

Nor deeper verdure dyes the robe of Spring,

When first she gives it to the southern gale,

Than the green emerald shows. But, all combined,

Thick through the whitening opal play thy beams;

Or, flying several from its surface, form

A trembling variance of revolving hues

As the site varies in the gazer's hand.

The very dead creation from thy touch

Assumes a mimic life. By thee refined,

In brighter mazes the relucent stream

Plays o'er the mead. The precipice abrupt,

Projecting horror on the blackened flood,

Softens at thy return. The desert joys

Wildly through all his melancholy bounds.

Rude ruins glitter; and the briny deep,

Seen from some pointed promontory's top

Far to the blue horizon's utmost verge,

Restless reflects a floating gleam. But this,

And all the much-transported Muse can sing,

Are to thy beauty, dignity, and use

Unequal far, great delegated Source

Of light and life and grace and joy below!

How shall I then attempt to sing of Him

Who, Light Himself, in uncreated light

Invested deep, dwells awfully retired

From mortal eye or angel's purer ken;

Whose single smile has, from the first of time,

Filled overflowing all those lamps of heaven

That beam for ever through the boundless sky:

But, should He hide his face, the astonished sun

And all the extinguished stars would, loosening, reel

Wide from their spheres, and chaos come again.

And yet, was every faltering tongue of man,

Almighty Father! silent in thy praise,

Thy works themselves would raise a general voice;

Even in the depth of solitary woods,

By human foot untrod, proclaim thy power;

And to the quire celestial Thee resound,

The eternal cause, support, and end of all!

To me be Nature's volume broad displayed;

And to peruse its all-instructing page,

Or, haply catching inspiration thence,

Some easy passage, raptured, to translate,

My sole delight; as through the falling glooms

Pensive I stray, or with the rising dawn

On fancy's eagle-wing excursive soar.

Now, flaming up the heavens, the potent sun

Melts into limpid air the high-raised clouds

And morning fogs that hovered round the hills

In parti-coloured bands; till wide unveiled

The face of nature shines from where earth seems,

Far-stretched around, to meet the bending sphere.

Half in a blush of clustering roses lost,

Dew-dropping Coolness to the shade retires;

There, on the verdant turf or flowery bed,

By gelid founts and careless rills to muse;

While tyrant Heat, dispreading through the sky

With rapid sway, his burning influence darts

On man and beast and herb and tepid stream.

Who can unpitying see the flowery race,

Shed by the morn, their new-flushed bloom resign

Before the parching beam? So fade the fair,

When fevers revel through their azure veins.

But one, the lofty follower of the sun,

Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves,

Drooping all night; and, when he warm returns,

Points her enamoured bosom to his ray.

Home from his morning task the swain retreats,

His flock before him stepping to the fold;

While the full-uddered mother lows around

The cheerful cottage then expecting food,

The food of innocence and health! The daw,

The rook, and magpie, to the grey-grown oaks

(That the calm village in their verdant arms,

Sheltering, embrace) direct their lazy flight;

Where on the mingling boughs they sit embowered

All the hot noon, till cooler hours arise.

Faint underneath the household fowls convene;

And, in a corner of the buzzing shade,

The house-dog with the vacant greyhound lies

Out-stretched and sleepy. In his slumbers one

Attacks the nightly thief, and one exults

O'er hill and dale; till, wakened by the wasp,

They starting snap. Nor shall the muse disdain

To let the little noisy summer-race

Live in her lay and flutter through her song:

Not mean though simple – to the sun allied,

From him they draw their animating fire.

Waked by his warmer ray, the reptile young

Come winged abroad, by the light air upborne,

Lighter, and full of soul. From every chink

And secret corner, where they slept away

The wintry storms, or rising from their tombs

To higher life, by myriads forth at once

Swarming they pour, of all the varied hues

Their beauty-beaming parent can disclose.

Ten thousand forms, ten thousand different tribes

People the blaze. To sunny waters some

By fatal instinct fly; where on the pool

They sportive wheel, or, sailing down the stream,

Are snatched immediate by the quick-eyed trout

Or darting salmon. Through the green-wood glade

Some love to stray; there lodged, amused, and fed

In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make

The meads their choice, and visit every flower

And every latent herb: for the sweet task

To propagate their kinds, and where to wrap

In what soft beds their young, yet undisclosed,

Employs their tender care. Some to the house,

The fold, and dairy hungry bend their flight;

Sip round the pail, or taste the curdling cheese:

Oft, inadvertent, from the milky stream

They meet their fate; or, weltering in the bowl,

With powerless wings around them wrapt, expire.

But chief to heedless flies the window proves

A constant death; where, gloomily retired,

The villain spider lives, cunning and fierce,

Mixture abhorred! Amid a mangled heap

Of carcases in eager watch he sits,

O'erlooking all his waving snares around.

Near the dire cell the dreadless wanderer oft

Passes; as oft the ruffian shows his front.

The prey at last ensnared, he dreadful darts

With rapid glide along the leaning line;

And, fixing in the wretch his cruel fangs,

Strikes backward grimly pleased: the fluttering wing

And shriller sound declare extreme distress,

And ask the helping hospitable hand.

Resounds the living surface of the ground:

Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum

To him who muses through the woods at noon,

Or drowsy shepherd as he lies reclined,

With half-shut eyes, beneath the floating shade

Of willows grey, close-crowding o'er the brook.

Gradual from these what numerous kinds descend,

Evading even the microscopic eye!

Full Nature swarms with life; one wondrous mass

Of animals, or atoms organized

Waiting the vital breath when Parent-Heaven

Shall bid his spirit blow. The hoary fen

In putrid streams emits the living cloud

Of pestilence. Through subterranean, cells,

Where searching sunbeams scarce can find a way,

Earth animated heaves. The flowery leaf

Wants not its soft inhabitants. Secure

Within its winding citadel the stone

Holds multitudes. But chief the forest boughs,

That dance unnumbered to the playful breeze,

The downy orchard, and the melting pulp

Of mellow fruit the nameless nations feed

Of evanescent insects. Where the pool

Stands mantled o'er with green, invisible

Amid the floating verdure millions stray.

Each liquid too, whether it pierces, soothes,

Inflames, refreshes, or exalts the taste,

With various forms abounds. Nor is the stream

Of purest crystal, nor the lucid air,

Though one transparent vacancy it seems,

Void of their unseen people. These, concealed

By the kind art of forming Heaven, escape

The grosser eye of man: for, if the worlds

In worlds inclosed should on his senses burst,

From cates ambrosial and the nectared bowl

He would abhorrent turn; and in dead night,

When Silence sleeps o'er all, be stunned with noise.

Let no presuming impious railer tax

Creative Wisdom, as if aught was formed

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-proportioned dome,

On swelling columns heaved, 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 the unbounded scheme of things,

Marked their dependence so and firm accord,

As with unfaltering accent to conclude

That this availeth nought? Has any seen

The mighty chain of beings, lessening down

From infinite perfection to the brink

Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss!

From which astonished thought recoiling turns?

Till then, alone let zealous praise ascend

And hymns of holy wonder to that Power

Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds

As on our smiling eyes his servant-sun.

Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways,

Upward and downward, thwarting and convolved,

The quivering nations sport; till, tempest-winged,

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, oblivion comes

Behind and strikes them from the book of life.

Now swarms the village o'er the jovial mead –

The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil,

Healthful and strong; full as the summer rose

Blown by prevailing suns, the ruddy maid,

Half naked, swelling on the sight, and all

Her kindled graces burning o'er her cheek.

Even stooping age is here; and infant hands

Trail the long rake, or, with the fragrant load

O'ercharged, amid the kind oppression roll.

Wide flies the tedded grain; all in a row

Advancing broad, or wheeling round the field,

They spread their breathing harvest to the sun,

That throws refreshful round a rural smell;

Or, as they rake the green-appearing ground,

And drive the dusky wave along the mead,

The russet hay-cock rises thick behind

In order gay: while heard from dale to dale,

Waking the breeze, resounds the blended voice

Of happy labour, love, and social glee.

Or, rushing thence, in one diffusive band

They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog

Compelled, to where the mazy-running brook

Forms a deep pool, this bank abrupt and high,

And that fair-spreading in a pebbled shore.

Urged to the giddy brink, much is the toil,

The clamour much of men and boys and dogs

Ere the soft, fearful people to the flood

Commit their woolly sides. And oft the swain,

On some impatient seizing, hurls them in:

Emboldened then, nor hesitating more,

Fast, fast they plunge amid the flashing wave,

And, panting, labour to the farther shore.

Repeated this, till deep the well-washed fleece

Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt

The trout is banished by the sordid stream.

Heavy and dripping, to the breezy brow

Slow move the harmless race; where, as they spread

Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray,

Inly disturbed, and wondering what this wild

Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints

The country fill; and, tossed from rock to rock,

Incessant bleatings run around the hills.

At last, of snowy white the gathered flocks

Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed,

Head above head; and, ranged in lusty rows,

The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears.

The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores,

With all her gay-drest maids attending round.

One, chief, in gracious dignity enthroned,

Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays

Her smiles sweet-beaming on her shepherd-king;

While the glad circle round them yield their souls

To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.

Meantime, their joyous task goes on apace:

Some mingling stir the melted tar, and some,

Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side

To stamp his master's cipher ready stand;

Others the unwilling wether drag along;

And, glorying in his might, the sturdy boy

Holds by the twisted horns the indignant ram.

Behold where bound, and of its robe bereft

By needy man, that all-depending lord,

How meek, how patient, the mild creature lies!

What softness in its melancholy face,

What dumb complaining innocence appears!

Fear not, ye gentle tribes! 'tis not the knife

Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you waved;

No, 'tis the tender swain's well-guided shears,

Who having now, to pay his annual care,

Borrowed your fleece, to you a cumbrous load,

Will send you bounding to your hills again.

A simple scene! yet hence Britannia sees

Her solid grandeur rise: hence she commands

The exalted stores of every brighter clime,

The treasures of the sun without his rage:

Hence, fervent all with culture, toil, and arts,

Wide glows her land: her dreadful thunder hence

Rides o'er the waves sublime, and now, even now,

Impending hangs o'er Gallia's humbled coast;

Hence rules the circling deep, and awes the world.

'Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the sun

Darts on the head direct his forceful rays.

O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye

Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all

From pole to pole is undistinguished blaze.

In vain the sight dejected to the ground

Stoops for relief; thence hot ascending steams

And keen reflection pain. Deep to the root

Of vegetation parched, the cleaving fields

And slippery lawn an arid hue disclose,

Blast fancy's blooms, and wither even the soul.

Echo no more returns the cheerful sound

Of sharpening scythe: the mower, sinking, heaps

O'er him the humid hay, with flowers perfumed;

And scarce a chirping grasshopper is heard

Through the dumb mead. Distressful nature pants.

The very streams look languid from afar,

Or, through the unsheltered glade, impatient seem

To hurl into the covert of the grove.

All-conquering heat, oh, intermit thy wrath!

And on my throbbing temples potent thus

Beam not so fierce! Incessant still you flow,

And still another fervent flood succeeds,

Poured on the head profuse.