Has done his part. Ye fostering Breezes! blow; Ye sostening Dews! ye tender Show'rs! descend; 50 And temper all, thou world-reviving Sun !
Into the perfect year. Nor ye who live
In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride,
Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear:
Such themes as these the rural Maro fung
To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height
Of elegance and taste, by Greece refin'd.
In ancient times, the sacred plough employ'd
The kings and awful fathers of mankind;
And fome, with whom compar'd your insect-tribes60
Are but the beings of a fummer's day,
Have held the scale of empire, rul'd the storm
Of mighty war, then with unwearied hand,
Disdaining little delicacies, feiz'd
The plough, and greatly independent liv'd. 65
Ye generous Britons! venerate the plough, And o'er your hills and long withdrawing vales Let Autumn spread his treasures to the fun, Luxuriant and unbounded. As the fea
Far thro' his azure turbulent domain
Your empire owns, and from a thousand shores
Wafts all the pomp of life into your ports,
So with fuperior boon may your rich foil,
Exuberant, Nature's better blessings pour
O'er every land, the naked nations clothe,
And be th' exhaustless granary of a world!
Nor only thro' the lenient air this change,
Delicious, breathes; the penetrative fun,
His force deep-darting to the dark retreat
Of vegetation, fets the steaming power
At large, to wander o'er the verdant earth
In various hues; but chiefly thee, gay Green!
Thou fmiling Nature's univerfal robe!
United light and shade! where the fight dwells
With growing strength, and ever new delight. 85
From the moift meadow to the withered hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And fwells, and deepens, to the cherish'd eye:
The hawthorn whitens, and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,
Till the whole leafy-forest stands display'd
In full luxuriance to the fighing gales,
Where the deer rufstle thro' the twining brake,
And the birds sing conceal'd. At once array'd
In all the colours of the flushing year,
By Nature's swift and fecret-working hand
The garden glows, and fills the liberal air
With lavish fragrance, while the promis'd fruit
Lies yet a little embryo, unperceiv'd,
Within its crimson folds. Now from the Town, 100
Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps,
Oft' let me wander o'er the dewy fields,
Where freshnessbreathes, and dashthetremblingdrops
From the bent bush, as thro' the verdant maze
Of fweet-brier hedges I pursue my walk,
Or tafte the smell of dairy, or afcend
Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains,
And fee the country, far diffus'd around,
One boundless biush, one white-empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms, where the raptur'd eye 110
Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath
The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.
If, brush'd from Russian wilds, a cutting gale Rise not, and scatter from his humid wings The clammy mildew; or, dry-blowing, breathe 115 Untimely frost, before whose baleful blast The full-blown Spring thro' all her foliage shrinks, Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste: For oft', engender'd by the hazy North, Myriads on myriads, insect armies, warp Keen in the poison'd breeze, and wasteful eat, Thro' buds and bark, into the blackened core Their eager way: a feeble race! yet oft' The facred fons of Vengeance, on whose course Corrofive Famine waits, and kills the year. To check this plague the skilful farmer chaff, And blazing straw, before his orchard burns, Till, all involv'd in smoke, the latent foe From every cranny suffocated falls,
Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust
Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe;
Or, when th' envenom'd leaf begins to curl,
Volume I.
With sprinkled water drowns them in their neft; Nor, while they pick them up with bufy bill, The little trooping birds unwifely scares.
Be patient, Swains! these cruel-seeming winds Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep reprefs'd Those deepening clouds on clouds, furcharg'd with That o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne, [rain, In endless train, would quench the fummer-blaze, 140 And, cheerless, drown the crude unripened year. The North-east spends his rage; he now shut up Within his iron cave, th' effusive South
Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven
Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent.
At first a dufky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining ether, but by swift degrees
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour fails
Along the loaded sky, and, mingling deep,
Sits on th' horizon round a fettled gloom:
Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed,
Oppressing life, but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope and every joy,
The wish of Nature. Gradual finks the breeze
Into a perfect calm, that not a breath
Is heard to quiver thro' the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves
Of afpin tall. Th' uncurling floods, diffus'd
In glassy breadth, seem, thro' delufive lapse,
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis filence all,
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry fprig, and, mute-imploring, eye:
The falling verdure. Hush'd in short suspense
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off,
And wait th' approaching sign to strike, at once,
Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,
And forests, feem impatient to demand
The promis'd sweetness. Man superior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise,
And looking lively gratitude. At last,
The clouds consign their treasures to the fields,
And, foftly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow
In large effusion o'er the freshened world.
The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard
By fuch as wander thro' the forest walks,
Beneath th' umbrageous multitude of leaves.
But who can hold the shade, while Heaven descends
In universal bounty, shedding herbs,
And fruits, and flowers, on Nature's ample lap?
Swift Fancy fir'd anticipates their growth,
And, while the milky nutriment distils,
Beholds the kindling country colour round.
Thus all day long the full-distended clouds 185 Indulge their genial stores, and well-shower'd earth Is deep enrich'd with vegetable life, Till in the western sky the downward fun
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