Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/204

And now among the wintry clouds again,
Roll'd in the doubling florin, she tries to soar;
To swell her note with all the rushing winds;25
To suit her sounding cadence to the floods;
As is her theme, her numbers wildly great:
Thrice happy! could she fill thy judging ear
With bold description, and with manly thought.
Nor art thou skill'd in awful schemes alone.30
And how to make a mighty people thrive;
But equal goodness, sound integrity,
A firm unshaken uncorrupted soul
Amid a sliding age, and burning strong,
Not vainly blazing for thy country's weal, 35
A steady spirit regularly free;
These, each exalting each, the statesman light
Into the patriot; these, the public hope
And eye to thee converting, bid the Muse
Record what envy dares not flattery call. 40

Now when the cheerless empire of the sky
To Capricorn the Centaur-Archer yields,
And fierce Aquarius, stains th' inverted year;
Hung o'er the farthest verge of heaven, the sun
Scarce spreads o'er ether the dejected day.45
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His struggling rays, in horizontal lines,
Thro' the thick air; as cloath'd in cloudy storm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;
And, soon descending, to the long dark night,50
Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.
Nor is the night unwish'd; while vital heat,
Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forsake.
Mean-time, in fable cincture, shadows vast,
Deep-ting'd and damp, and congregated clouds,55
And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven

Involve