Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/111

In vain, or not for admirable ends. 320
Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?
As if upon a full-proportion'd dome,
On swelling Columns heav'd, the pride of art! 325
A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads
An inch around, with blind presumption bold,
Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.
And lives the Man, whose universal eye
Has swept at once th' unbounded scheme of things: 330
Mark'd their dependance so, and firm accord,
As with unfaultering accent to conclude
That This evaileth nought? has any seen
The mighty chain of beings, lessening down
From Infinite Perfection to the brink 335
Of dreary Nothing, desolate abyss!
From which astonish'd thought, recoiling, turns?
Till then alone let zealous praise ascend,
And hymns of holy wonder, to that Power,
Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds, 340
As on our smiling eyes his servant-sun.

Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways,
Upward, and downward, thwarting, and convolv'd,
The quivering nations sport; till, tempest-wing'd,
Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day. 345
Even so luxurious Men, unheeding, pass
An idle summer-life in fortune's shine,
A season's glitter! thus they flutter on
From toy to toy, from vanity to vice;
Till, blown away by death, oblivon comes 350
Behind, and strikes them from the book of life.

Now swarms the village o'er the jovial mead:
The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil,