From all which nature fairest knows,
The vernal blooms, the fummer rofe,
She draws her blameless wealth;
And, when the generous task is done,
She confecrates a double bocn,
To pleasure and to health.
THE radiant ruler of the year
At length his wintery goal attains ;
Soon to reverse the long career,
And northward bend his fteady reins.
Now, piercing half Potofi's height,
Prone rush the fiery floods of light
Ripening the mountain's filver stores:
While in fome cavern's horrid fhade,
The panting Indian hides his head,
And oft the approach of eve implores.
But lo, on this deferted coaft
How pale the fun! how thick the air!
Mustering his ftorms, a fordid host,
Lo, winter defolates the year.
The fields refign their latest bloom ;
No more the breezes wäft perfume,
No more the ftreams in mufic roll:
But fnows fall dark, or rains refound;
And, while great nature mourns around,
Her griefs infect the human foul.
Hence the loud city's busy throngs
Urge the warm bowl and splendid fire :
Harmonious dances, feftive fongs
Against the spiteful heaven conspire, ▾
Meantime perhaps with tender fears
Some village-dame the curfew hears,
While round the hearth her children play :.
At morn their father went abroad ;
The moon is funk, and deep the road
She fighs; and wonders at his stay.
But thou, my lyre, awake, arise,
And hail the fun's returning force :
Even now he climbs the northern skies,
And health and hope attend his courfe:
Then louder howl the aërial waste,
Be earth with keener cold embrac'd,
Yet gentle hours advance their wing;
And fancy, mocking winter's might,
With flowers and dews and streaming light
Already decks the new-born fpring.
O fountain of the golden day,
Could mortal vows promote thy speed,
How foon before thy vernal ray
Should each unkindly damp recede !
How foon each hovering tempeft fly,
Whofe ftores for mifchief arm the sky,
Prompt on our heads to burft amain,
To rend the foreft from the steep,
Or, thundering o'er the Baltic deep,
To whelm the merchant's hopes of gain!
But let not man's unequal views
Prefume o'er nature and her laws :
'Tis his with grateful joy to ufe
The indulgence of the fovran caufe;
Secure that health and beauty fprings
Through this majestic frame of things,
Beyond what he can reach to know;
And that heaven's all-fubduing will,
With good the progeny of ill,
Attempereth every state below.
How pleafing wears the wintery night,
Spent with the old illuftrious dead!
While, by the taper's trembling light,
I feem thofe awful fcenes to tread
Where chiefs or legislators lie,
Whofe triumphs move before my eye
In arms and antique pomp array'd;
While now I taste the Ionian song,
Now bend to Plato's god-like tongue
Refounding through the olive shade.
But fhould fome chearful, equal friend
Bid leave the ftudious page a while,
Let mirth on wisdom then attend,
And focial ease on learned toil.
Then while, at love's uncareful fhrine,
Each dictates to the god of wine
Her name whom all his hopes obey,
What flattering dreams each bofom warm,
While abfence, heightening every charm,
Invokes the flow-returning May!
May, thou delight of heaven and earth,
When will thy geniál star arise ?
The aufpicious morn, which gives thee birth,
Shall bring Eudora`to my èyes.
Within her fylvan haunt behold,
As in the happy garden old,
She moves like that primeval fair :
Thither, ye filver-founding lyres,
Ye tender fmiles, ye chaste defires,
Fond hope and mutual faith, repair.
And if believing love can read
His better omens in her eye,
Then shall my fears, O charming maid,
And every pain of absence die :
Then shall my jocund harp, attun'd
To thy true ear, with fweeter found
Pursue the free Horatian fong:
Old Tyne fhall listen to my tale,
And Echo down the bordering vale
The liquid melody prolong.
To a FRIEND, UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOVE.
INDEED, my Phædria, if to find
That wealth can female wishes gain
Had e'er difturb'd your thoughtful mind,
Or coft one ferious moment's pain,
I fhould have said that all the rules,
You learn'd of moralifts and schools,
Were very useless, very vain.
Yet I perhaps mistake the case
Say, though with this heroic air,
Like one that holds a nobler chace,
You try the tender lofs to bear,
Does not your heart renounce your tongue?
Seems not my censure strangely wrong
To count it fuch a flight affair?
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