On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams,
High-gleaming from afar. Prime chearer, Light! 90
Of all material beings first, and best!
Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe!
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun!
Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen95
Shines out thy Maker! may I sing of thee?
'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force,
As with a chain indissoluble bound,
Thy System rolls entire: from the far bourne
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round 100
Of thirty years; to Mercury, whofe disk
Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,
Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.
Informer of the planetary train!
Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous orbs 105
Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead,
And not, as now, the green abodes of life!
How many forms of being wait on thee,
Inhaling spirit; from th' unfetter'd mind,
By thee sublim'd, down to the daily race,110
The mixing myriads of thy setting beam.
The vegetable world is also thine,
Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede
That waits thy throne, as thro' thy vast domain,
Annual, along the bright ecliptic road,115
In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime.
Mean-time th' expecting nations, circled gay
With all the various tribes of foodful earth,
Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up
A common hymn: while round thy beaming car.120
High-
