Whate’er I do, it sees me still,
O then, Good Spirit, guide my will!”
In another place the four elements are considered in a modestly scientific light.[193] They balance a juvenile version of The Seasons. Nature is regarded from the old didactic point of view. Spring, when “the Creatures begin their employ” invites to industry; the Idle who in Summer “love best in the shade to recline” are admonished by the active joys of haymaking; the innocent hare is remembered in the hunting season, and in Winter, Charity sits by a glowing hearth and comforts itself with the sophistries of Dr. Watts for the unequal distribution of faggots.
These are but echoes; there are many touches that give the personal records of keen and watchful eyes:
“I saw a leaf come tilting down,
From a bare wither’d bough;
The leaf was dead, the branch was brown,
No fruit was left it now:
“But much the rattling tempest blew,
The naked boughs among: