Nature and Elements

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl’d, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just rais’d to shed his blood.

Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain, Here earth and water seem to strive again, Not chaos-like together crush’d and bruis’d, But, as the world, harmoniously confus’d: Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree.

Where’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where’er you tread, the blushing flow’rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

Where’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where’er you tread, the blushing flow’rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

Where’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where’er you tread, the blushing flow’rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

By night an atheist half believes a God.

Creation sleeps! ’Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end.

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden scepter o’er a slumbering world.

Tired nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep!

Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth; While all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole.

Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth; While all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole.

The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim.

For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.

I am as free as Nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

By viewing Nature, Nature’s handmaid Art, Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow.

God the first garden made, and the first city.

Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say, Have ye not seen us walking every day? Was there a tree about which did not know The love betwixt us two?

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, And drinks, and gapes for drink again. The plants suck in the earth, and are With constant drinking fresh and fair.

Fly ’bout the ears of the old cur.

The sun to me is dark And silent as the moon, When she deserts the night, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.

Elephants endorsed with towers.

Her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she eat: Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost.

The serpent subtlest beast of all the field.