If thou canst secret things explain,
And hidden causes shew,
Where dwells the father of the rain?
And who begat the dew?

How are the hov'ring mists, so soft,
Arrested in their flight;
Then harden'd in the air aloft,
And whiten'd in the night?

Canst thou the nature of the ice,
With great exactness show;
Which, with its fett'ring artifice,
Forbids the floods to flow;

Compels the fluid element,
So still and calm, to stand;
Binds rivers with its hard cement,
And makes the water land?

The billows of the sea congeal'd
Can roll no farther on;
The ocean's wat'ry face conceal'd
As with a marble stone.

Fierce is the frost; what womb did then
So fell a tamer breed,
That's equal hardy on the main,
As hoary on the mead?