Page:An English Garner Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (Volume 1 1877).pdf/166

I count it better pleasure to behold
The goodly compass of the lofty sky;
And in the midst thereof like burning gold.
The flaming chariot of the world's great Eye;
The wat'ry clouds that in the air uprolled
With sundry kinds of painted colours fly;
  And fair AURORA lifting up her head,
  All blushing rise from old TITHONUS' bed.

The hills and mountains raisèd from the plains,
The plains extended level with the ground,
The ground divided into sundry veins,
The veins inclosed with running rivers round,
The rivers making way through Nature's chain,
With headlong course into the sea profound,
  The surging sea beneath the valleys low,
  The valleys sweet, and lakes that lovely flow.

The lofty woods, the forests wide and long,
Adorned with leaves and branches fresh and green;
In whose cool bowers the birds with chanting song
Do welcome with their quire, the Summer's Queen:
The meadows fair where FLORA'S gifts among,
Are intermixt the verdant grass between;
  The silver-scalèd fish that softly swim
  Within the brooks and crystal wat'ry brim.

All these and many more of His creation
That made the heavens, the Angler oft doth see;
And takes therein no little delectation
To think how strange and wonderful they be;
Framing thereof an inward contemplation
To set his thoughts from other fancies free.
  And whiles he looks on these with joyful eye,
  His mind is rapt above the starry sky.