ABSTRACT
A Hymn is Thomson’s song of praise to God, and, since it is a hymn, it is a public declaration, an overt statement of the speaker’s Iove and faith. Leslie Stephen writes that the ‘descriptions of nature are supposed to suggest the commentary embodied in the hymn.’ At the conclusion of Winter, the poet addressed the ‘good Distrest,’ for he accepted the actuality that the good can be distressed, and he urged them to endure, for in Paradise their bounded view that led them to consider certain sufferings as evil would be seen as an error. The seasons then will disappear: The Storms of Wintry time will quickly pass, and one unbounded Spring encircle All. Thomson’s Hymn is the idealized voice of the poet not describing the world but praising God’s love, beauty and power in it.
