The very dead creation, from thy touch, Assumes a mimic life. By thee refin'd, In brighter mazes the relucent stream Plays o'er the mead. The precipice abrupt, Projecting horror on the blacken'd 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! [Illustration: From some promontory's top] 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, Fill'd, overflowing, all those lamps of heaven, That beam forever through the boundless sky; But, should he hide his face, the astonish'd sun, And all the extinguish'd 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-display'd; And to peruse its all-instructing page, Or, haply catching inspiration thence, Some easy passage, raptur'd, 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. [Illustration: Approach of evening] Now, flaming up the heavens, the potent sun Melts into limpid air the high-rais'd clouds, And morning fogs, that hover'd round the hills In party-color'd bands; till wide unveil'd The face of nature shines, from where earth seems Far stretch'd 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-flush'd 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 enamor'd bosom to his ray.