The seed is sown, and with fond hopes elate,
The husbandmen th’ approach of autumn wait.
But when this time Skirnir his master found
With pallid hue, immers’d in grief profound,
He wonder’d much, and thus exclaim’d aloud:
“How now? my sovereign! thus with sorrow bow’d,
When all creation, deck’d in radiant vest,
Indulges brightest hopes, which thy behest
Alone can gratify; for in thy hand
The Fates have placed the fecundating wand,