Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/102

Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart;
Genius, and Wisdom; the gay social sense,
By decency chastis'd; goodness and wit, 25
In seldom-meeting harmony combin'd;
Unblemish'd 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, 30
And teach me to deserve thy just Applause.

With what an awful world-revolving power
Were first th' unwieldy planets launch'd along
Th' illimitable void! Thus to remain,
Amid the flux of many thousand years,35
That oft has swept the toiling race of Men,
And all their labour'd monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless, in their course;
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day,
And of the seasons ever stealing round,40
Minutely faithful: Such Th' all-Perfect Hand!
That pois'd, impels, and rules the steady Whole.

When now no more th' alternate Twins are fir'd,
And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the night:45
And soon, observant of approaching day,
The meek-ey'd 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,50
White break the clouds away. With quicken'd 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.55

Blue,