“Sees Caledonia, in romantic view: 
  Her airy mountains, from the waving main
  Invested with a keen diffusive sky,
  Breathing the soul acute; her forests huge,
  Incult, robust, and tall, by Nature’s hand
  Planted of old; her azure lakes between,
  Poured out extensive and of watery wealth
  Full; winding, deep and green, her fertile vales,
  With many a cool translucent brimming flood
  Washed lovely....”

And in A Hymn we read: 

  Ye headlong torrents rapid and profound,
  Ye softer floods that lead the humid maze
  Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
  A secret world of wonders in thyself.

It is the lack of human life, the didactic tone, and the wearisome detail which destroys interest in the Seasons—­the lack of happy moments of invention.  Yet it had great influence on his contemporaries in rousing love for Nature, and it contains many beautiful passages.  For example: 

  Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come,
  And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
  While music wakes around, veiled in a shower
  Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.

His most artistic poem is Winter: 

  When from the pallid sky the sun descends
  With many a spot, that o’er his glaring orb
  Uncertain wanders, stained; red fiery streaks
  Begin to flush around.  The reeling clouds
  Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet
  Which master to obey; while rising slow,
  Blank in the leaden-coloured east, the moon
  Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. 
  Seen through the turbid fluctuating air,
  The stars obtuse emit a shivering ray;
  Or frequent seem to shoot, athwart the gloom,
  And long behind them trail the whitening blaze. 
  Snatched in short eddies plays the withered leaf,
  And on the flood the dancing feather floats. 
  With broadened nostrils to the sky upturned,
  The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale.... 
  Retiring from the downs, where all day long
  They picked their scanty fare, a blackening train
  Of clamorous rooks thick urge their weary flight
  And seek the closing shelter of the grove,
  Assiduous, in his bower, the wailing owl
  Plies his sad song.  The cormorant on high
  Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land. 
  Loud shrieks the soaring heron, and with wild wing
  The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky skies. 
  Ocean, unequal pressed, with broken tide
  And blind commotion heaves, while from the shore,
  Eat into caverns by the restless wave
  And forest-rustling mountains, comes a voice
  That solemn-sounding bids the world prepare.

The elaboration of detail in such painting is certain evidence, not only of a keen, but an enthusiastic eye for Nature.  As he says in Winter: 

  Nature, great parent! whose unceasing hand
  Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year! 
  How mighty, how majestic, are thy works! 
  With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul
  That sees astonish’d, and astonish’d sings!