Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams, Till, choked and matted with the dreary shower, The forest walks, at every rising gale, Roll wide the withered waste and whistle bleak. Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields, And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race Their sunny robes resign; even what remained Of stronger fruits fall from the naked tree; And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around, The desolated, prospect thrills the soul. A HYMN (CONCLUDING THE SEASONS) These, as they change, Almighty Father, these, Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of Thee. Forth In the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Wide-flush the fields; the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; And every sense, and every heart is joy. Then comes thy glory in the summer-months, With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year: And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks; And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales. Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that lives. In winter awful thou' with clouds and storms Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing, Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore, And humblest nature with thy northern blast. Mysterious round! what skill, what force Divine Deepfelt, in these appear! a simple train, Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, Such beauty and beneficence combined: Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade; And all so forming an harmonious whole; That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze, Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand; That, ever-busy, wheels the silent spheres; Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring: Flings from the sun direct the flaming day; Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth; And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, With transport touches all the springs of life.