Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,
Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.”
Had our poet written his Summer in 1781, the year in which Uranus was discovered, instead of 1727; or could he have waited till 1846, his “utmost Saturn wheeling wide his round of thirty years” would probably have been changed and in beautifully flowing verse would have been expressed the wonderful fact of “utmost Neptune, wheeling wide his round, whose years could only be by four and sixty and one hundred told.” So much in one respect had astronomy grown in a little more than a century. But we could have no heart to blame our poet’s neglect of our “utmost” planets, even had he known of their existence, since he was so evidently in earnest in giving its due to our glorious orb, recognized to-day as the source of all our light, and heat, and life.
“From brightening fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature’s depth;
He comes, attended by the Hours
And ever-fanning Breezes, on his way;
While from his ardent look, the turning Spring
Averts her blushful face; and earth and skies,