mate friends, by whom he was much beloved for the kindness of his heart. His Seasons abounds in sensibility and beauty of natural description. His diction, although occasionally cumbrc us and labored, is always energetic and expressive. His Castle of Indolence is the most spirited and beautiful of all the imitations of Spenser, both for moral, poetical, and descriptive power. His tragedies possess little dramatic interest.
This edition of The Seasons, with an accurate inax, and prefatory argument to each of the pooks, will, it is believed, commend itself to the general reader and to those particularly engaged in literary instruction.
Concord, N. H. Jun. 1840.
The subject propesed. Inscribed to the Countess of Hertford. The Season is described as it affects the various parts of Nature, ascending from the lower to the higher; with digressions arising from the subject. Its influence on inanimate Matter, or Vegetables, on brute animals, and, last, on Man; concluding with a dissuasive from the wild and irregular passion of Love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind.
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. O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts With unaffected grace, or walk the plain With innocence and meditation joined In soft assemblage, listen to my song, Which thy own Season paints; when Nature all Is blooming and benevolent, like thee.
And see where surly WINTER passes off, Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts: His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, The shattered forest, and the ravaged vale;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch, 15 Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,
The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed,
And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze, Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets Deform the day delightless: so that scarce The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulfed, To shake the sounding marsh; or from the shore The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath, And sing their wild notes to the listening waste
At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun,
And the bright Bu receives him. Then no more Th' expansive atmosphere is cramped with cold, But, full of life and vivifying soul,
Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them thin,
Fleecy, and white o'er all surrounding heaven.
Forth fly the tepid airs; and unconfined,
Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays. Joyous, th' impatient husbandman perceives Relenting Nature, and his lusty steers
Drives from their stalls, to where the well-used plough Lies in the furrow, loosened from the frost. There unrefusing, to the harnessed yoke,
They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil, Cheered by the simple song and soaring lark. Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share The master leans, removes th' obstructing clay, Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe. While thro' the neighboring elds the sower stalks, With measured step; and liberal throws the grain 45 Into the faithful bosom of the ground:
The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.
Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious man Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow; Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend! 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 sung (a) To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height Of elegance and taste, by Greece refined.
In ancient times, the sacred plough employed The kings and awful fathers of mankind: And some,
with whom compared your insect tribes 60 Are but the beings of a summer's day,
Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm. Of mighty war; then, with unwearied hand,
Disdaining le delicacies, seized
The plouga, and greatly independent lived.
Ye generous Britons, venerate the plough! And o'er your hills and long-withdrawing vales Let Autumn spread his treasures to the sun, Luxuriant and unbounded: as the sea, Far through his azure, turbulent domain, Your empire owns, and from a thousand shores Wafts all the pomp of life into your ports; So with superior boon may your rich soil, Exuberant, Nature's better blessings pour O'er every land, the naked nations clothe, And be th' exhaustless granary of a world!
Nor only through the lenient air this change, Delicious, breathes; the penetrative sun, His force deep darting to the dark retreat
Of vegetation, sets the steaming Power At large, to wander o'er the verdant earth, In various hues; but chiefly thee, gay green' Thou smiling Nature's universal robe ! United light and shade! where the sight dwells With growing strength and ever new delight.
From the moist meadow to the wither'd hill, Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs, And swells and deepens to the cherished eye. The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees, Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed, In full luxuriance, to the sighing gales:
Where the deer rustle through the twining brake, And the birds sing concealed. At once array ed In all the colors of the flushing year,
By Nature's swift and secret-working hand,
The garden flows, and fills the liberal air
With lavish fragrance; while the promised fruit Lies yet a little embryo, unperceived,
Within its crimson folds. Now from the town,
Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps,
Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,
Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops
. From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze Of sweetbriar hedges I pursue my walk;
Or taste the smell of dairy, or ascend
Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains, And see the country, far diffused around,
One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower. Of mingled blossoms; where the raptured eye Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.
If, brushed 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 through all her foliage shrinks. Joyless and dead, a wide, dejected waste. For oft, engendered by the hazy north, Myriads on myriads, insect armies waft Keen in the poisoned breeze; and wasteful eat, Through buds and bark, into the blackened core, Their eager way. A feeble race! yet oft The sacred sons of vengeance; on whose course Corrosive Famine waits, and kills the year. To check this plague the skilful farmer chaff And blazing straw before his orchard burns Till, all involved 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' envenomed leaf begins to curl,
With sprinked water drowns them in their nest: Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill,
The little trooping birds unwisely scares.
Be patient, swains; these cruel-seeming winds Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repress'd
These deepening clouds on clouds,surcharg'd with rain, That o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne,
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