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In shades like these pursue your favourite joy,
'Midst nature's revel, sports that never cloy.--
A few begin a short but vigorous race,
And indolence, abashed, soou flies the place:
Thus challeng'd forth, see thither, one by one
From every side assembling playmates run;
A thousand wily antics mark their stay,
A starting crowd impatient of delay.

Like the fond dove from fearful prison freed,
Each seems to say, "Come, let us try our speed :"
Away they scour, impetuous, ardent, strong,

The green turf trembling as they bound along;
Adown the slope, then up the hillock climb,
Where every molehill is a bed of thyme;
There panting stop, yet scarcely can refrain
A bird, a leaf will set them off again,
Or, if a gale with strength unusual blow,
Scattering the wild-briar roses into snow,
Their little limbs increasing efforts try,
Like the torn flower the fair assemblage fly.
Ah, fallen rose! sad emblem of their doom;
Frail as thyself, they perish while they bloom!

THE HORSE.

YOUNG.

SURVEY the warlike horse! didst thou in

vest

With thunder his robust, distended chest?
No sense of fear his dauntless soul allays;
'Tis dreadful to behold his nostrils blaze:
To paw the vale he proudly takes delight,
And triumphs in the fulness of his might;
High-rais'd, he snuffs the battle from afar,
And burns to plunge amid the raging war:
He mocks at death, and throws his foam
around,

And in a storm of fury shakes the ground.
How does his firm, his rising heart, advance
Full on the brandish'd sword, and shaken
lance;

While his fix'd eye-balls meet the dazzling
shield,

Gaze, and return the lightning of the field!
He sinks the sense of pain in gen'rous pride,
Nor feels the shaft that trembles in his side;

But neighs to the shrill trumpet's dreadful blast,

Till death, and when he groans, he groans

his last!

THE LION.

YOUNG.

FIERCE o'er the sands the lordly Lion stalks,
Grimly majestic in his lonely walks:
When round he glares, all living creatures
fly;

He clears the desert with his rolling eye,
By the pale moon he takes his destin'd round,
Lashes his sides, and furious tears the ground.
Now shrieks and dying groans the forest fill,
He rages, rends, his rav'nous jaws distil
With crimson foam, and when the banquet's
o'er,

He strides away, and paints his steps with
gore.

In flight alone the shepherd puts his trust,
And shudders at the talon in the dust.

AMPHIBIOUS ANIMALS AND FISHES.

THE NAUTILUS.

SMITH.

WHERE Southern suns and winds prevail,
And undulate the summer seas;
The Nautilus expands his sail,

And scuds before the fresh'ning breeze.

Oft is a little squadron seen
Of mimic ships all rigg'd complete;
Fancy might think the fairy queen
Was sailing with her elfin fleet.

With how much beauty is design'd Each channell❜d bark of purest white! With orient pearl each cabin lined, Varying with every change of light.

While with his little slender oars, His silken sail, and tapering mast, The dauntless mariner explores The dangers of the watery waste.

Prepared, should tempests rend the sky,
From harm his fragile bark to keep,
He furls his sail, his oar lays by,
And seeks his safety in the deep,

Then safe on ocean's shelly bed,
He hears the storm above him roar;
'Mid groves of coral glowing red,
Or rocks o'erhung with madrepore.

So let us catch life's favouring gale, But if fate's adverse winds be rude, Take calmly in th' adventurous sail And find repose in Solitude.

TO THE FLYING FISH.

MOORE.

WHEN I have seen thy snowy wing,
O'er the blue wave at evening spring,
And give those scales of silver white,
So gaily to the eye of light,
As if thy frame were formed to rise,
And live amid the glorious skies;
Oh it has made me proudly feel,
How like thy wing's impatient zeal
Is the pure soul, that scorns to rest
Upon the world's ignoble breast,
But takes the plume that God has given,
And rises into light and heaven!

But when I see that wing so bright,
Grow languid with a moment's flight,
Attempt the paths of air in vain,
And sink into the waves again;
Alas! the flattering pride is o'er;

Like thee, awhile, the soul may soar,
But erring man must blush, to think,
Like thee, again, the soul may sink!
Oh! Virtue, when thy clime I seek,
Let not my spirit's flight be weak:
Let me not, like this feeble thing,
With brine still dropping from its wing,

Just sparkle in the solar glow,

And plunge again to depths below:
But, when I leave the grosser throng
With whom my soul hath dwelt so long,
Let me in that aspiring day,
Cast every lingering stain away,
And panting for thy purer air,
Fly up at once, and fix me there.

THE BEHEMOTH.

YOUNG.

MILD is the Behemoth, though large his frame,
Smooth is his temper, and repress'd his flame,

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While unprovoked!-This native of the flood
Lifts his broad foot, and puts ashore for food;
Earth sinks beneath him, as he moves along
To see the herbs and mingle with the throng.
See, with what strength his harden'd limbs are bound,
All over proof, and shut against a wound.
How like a mountain-cedar moves his tail?
Nor can his complicated sinews fail.

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Built high and wide, his solid bones surpass
The bars of steel; his ribs are ribs of brass;
His port majestic, and his armed jaw,
Give the wide forest, and the mountain law,
The mountains feed him; there the beasts admire
The mighty stranger, and in dread retire :
At length his greatness nearer they survey,
Graze in his shadow, and his eye obey.
The fens and marshes are his cool retreat,
His noontide shelter from the burning heat;

Their sedgy bosoms his wide couch are made,

And groves of willows give him all their shade:

His eye drinks Jordan up, when fir'd with drought
He trusts to turn its current down his throat;
In lessen'd waves it creeps along the plain;"
He sinks a river and he thirsts again.

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THE LEVIATHAN.

YOUNG.

BEHOLD the large Leviathan arise,

Boast all his strength, and spread his wondrous size.
Whose heart sustains him to draw near? Behold,
Destruction yawns; his spacious jaws unfold,
And marshall'd round the wide expanse disclose
Teeth edged with death, and crowding rows on rows:
What hideous fangs on either side arise:

And what a deep abyss between them lies!
Strength on his ample shoulder sits in state;
His well-joined limbs are dreadfully complete;
His flakes of solid flesh are slow to part;

As steel his nerves, as adamant his heart.

His like earth bears not on her spacious face:
Alone in nature stands his danntless race,

For utter ignorance of fear renown'd,
In wrath he rolls his baleful eye around,
Makes every swoln disdainful heart subside,
And holds dominion o'er the sons of Pride.

"

COUNTRIES.

ENGLAND.

DYER.

HAIL, noble Albion! where no golden mines, No soft perfumes, nor oils, nor myrtle bowers,

The vigorous frame and lofty heart of man Enervate round whose stern cerulean brows White-winged snow, and cloud, and pearly rain,

Frequent attend, with solemn majesty! Rich queen of mists and vapours! these thy

sons

With their cool arms compress; and twist their nerves

For deeds of excellence and high renown. Thus form'd our Edwards, Henrys, Churchhills, Blakes,

Our Lockes, our Newtons, and our Miltons

rose.

See the sun gleams; the living pastures rise,
After the nurture of the fallen shower,
How beautiful! how blue th' ethereal vault,
How verdurous the lawns, how clear the
brooks!

Such noble warlike steeds, such herds of kine, So sleek, so vast; such spacious flocks of sheep,

Like flakes of gold illumining the green, What other paradise adorn but thine, Britannia? happy, if thy sons would know Their happiness. To these thy naval streams, Thy frequent towns superb of busy trade, And ports magnific add, and stately ships, Innumerous.

Its woods delight the eye, its hills arise,
Clothed in perpetual verdure.-

And to crown the whole

In one delightful word, which fills the breast With all sweet hopes, and tender sympa

thies

This pride of the creation is our HOME!Our father's, and our own dear native land!

COWPER.

ENGLAND, with all thy faults, I love thee still:

My country! and while yet a nook is left, Where English minds and manners may be found,

Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime

Be fickle, and thy year most part deformed With dripping rains, or withered by a frost, I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies, And fields without a flower, for warmer France

With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves Or golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers. To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire Upon thy foes, was never meant my task: But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake Thy joys and sorrows, with as true a heart, As any thunderer there.

COTTLE.

A FAIRER isle than Britain, never sun View'd in his wide career. A lovely spot, For all that life can ask, salubrious, mild: Its rivers, glistening to the noon-tide beam, Meandering, glide, in silent majesty, Bearing all blessings to the rich champaigns.

HOLLAND.

GOLDSMITH.

To men of other minds my fancy flies, Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies. Methinks her patient sons before me stand, Where the broad ocean leans against the land,

And sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow;
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery

roar,

ITALY.

GOLDSMITH.

FAR to the right where Appennine ascends,
Bright as the summer, Italy extends;
Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's
side,

Woods over woods in gay theatric pride; While oft some temple's mould'ring tops between

Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore,
While the pent ocean rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him
smile:
The slow canal, the yellow blossom'd vale, With venerable grandeur mark the scene.
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowned mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign.

SWITZERLAND.

GOLDSMITH.

TURN we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display; Where the bleak Swiss their stormy man

sion tread,

And force a churlish soil for scanty bread:
No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword,
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.
Yet even here content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.
Tho' poor the peasant's hut, his feasts tho'
small,

He sees his little lot, the lot of all,
And every good his native wilds impart,
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
And even those ills, that round his mansion
rise,

Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear the hill which lifts him to the
storms;

And as a child when scaring sounds molest, Clings close, and closer to his mother's breast,.

So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,

But bind him to his native mountains more.

Could nature's bounty satisfy the breast, The sons of Italy were surely blest. Whatever fruits in different climes are found,

That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground;

Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear, Whose bright succession decks the varied

year;

Whatever sweets salute the northern sky With vernal lives, that blossom but to die; These here disporting own the kindred soil, Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil; While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand

To wionow fragrance round the smiling land.

GREECE.

BYRON.

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HE who hath bent him o'er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is filed,
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,
(Before decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty fingers,)
And mark'd the mild angelic air,
The rapture of repose that's there,
The fix'd yet tender traits that streak
The langour of the placid cheek,
And-but for that sad shrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,
And but for that chill changeless brow,
Where cold obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these, and these alone,

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