He, too, wrote with hymn-like swing in praise of the Creator: 'Great is the Lord! the unnumbered heavens are the chambers of his fortress, storm and thunder-clouds his chariot.'
The most famous of his poems, and the one most admired in his own day, was Spring. This is full of love for Nature. It describes a country walk after the muggy air of town, and conveys a vivid impression of fresh germinating spring, though it is overlaid by monotonous detail:
Receive me, hallowed shades! Ye dwellings of sweet buss!
Umbrageous arches full of sleeping dark delights ...
Receive me! Fill my soul with longing and with rest ...
And you, ye laughing fields,
Valleys of roses, labyrinths of streams,
I will inhale an ecstasy with your balsamic breath,
And, lying in the shade, on strings of gold
Sing your indwelling joys....