Within its crimfon folds. Now from the town
Buried in smoke, and fleep, and noifome damps,
Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,

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Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops
From the bent bufh, as through the verdant maze
Of fweet-briar hedges I purfue my walk;

Or tafte the smell of dairy; or afcend
Some eminence, Augufta, in thy plains,
And fee the country, far diffus'd around,
One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower
Of mingled bloffoms; where the raptur'd eye
Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath
The fair profufion, yellow Autumn fpies.
If, brush'd from Ruffian wilds, a cutting gale
Rife not, and scatter from his humid wings

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The clammy mildew; or, dry-blowing, breathe 115
Untimely froft; before whose baleful blast

The full-blown Spring through all her foliage fhrinks,
Joylefs and dead, a wide-dejected waste.
For oft, engender'd by the hazy north,
Myriads on myriads, infect armies waft

Keen in the poifon'd breeze; and wasteful eat,
Through buds and bark, into the blacken'd core,
Their eager way. A feeble race! yet oft

The facred fons of vengeance; on whofe courfe

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 fmoke, the latent foe:
From every cranny fuffocated falls :

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Or fcatters o'er the blooms the pungent duft
Of pepper, fatal to the frofty tribe:

Or, when th' envenom'd leaf begins to curl,
With fprinkled water drowns them in their neft;
Nor, while they pick them up with bufy bill,
The little trooping birds unwifely scares.

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Be patient, fwains; thefe cruel-feeming winds Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep reprefs'd Thofe deepening clouds on clouds, furcharg'd with rain, That, o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne,

In endless train, would quench the fummer-blaze, 140 And, chearlefs, drown the crude unripened year.

The north-east spends his rage; he now fhut 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 fhowers diftent.
At first a dusky wreath they feem to rife,
Scarce ftaining æther; but by fwift 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 fuch as wintery-ftorms on mortals fhed,
Oppreffing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope and every joy,

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The with of Nature. Gradual finks the breeze

Into a perfect calm; that not a breath

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Is heard to quiver through the clofing woods,
Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves
Of afpin tall. Th' uncurling floods, diffus'd
In glaffy breadth, feem through delufive lapfe

Forgetful

Forgetful of their courfe. 'Tis filence all,
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry fprig, and mute-imploring eye
The falling verdure. Hufh'd in fhort fufpenfe,
The plumy people ftreak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;
And wait th' approaching fign to strike, at once,
Into the general choir. Ev'n mountains, vales,
And forefts feem, impatient, to demand
The promis'd sweetness. Man fuperior walks
Amid the glad creation, mufing praife,
And looking lively gratitude. At laft,
The clouds confign their treasures to the fields;
And, foftly fhaking on the dimpled pool
Prelufive drops, let all their moisture flow,
In large effufion, o'er the freshen'd world.
The ftealing fhower is fcarce to patter heard,
By fuch as wander through the forest walks,
Beneath th' umbrageous multitude of leaves.

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But who can hold the fhade, while Heaven defcends
In univerfal bounty, fhedding herbs,

And fruits, and flowers, on Nature's ample lap?

Swift fancy fir'd anticipates their growth;

And, while the milky nutriment diftils,
Beholds the kindling country colour round.
Thus all day long the full-diftended clouds

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Indulge their genial ftores, and well-fhower'd earth
Is deep-enrich'd with vegetable life;

Till, in the western sky, the downward fun
Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flufh

Of

Of broken clouds, gay-fhifting to his beam.

The rapid radiance inftantaneous strikes

Th' illumin'd mountain, through the forest streams,
Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,

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Far fmoaking o'er th' interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.

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Moift, bright, and green, the landskip laughs around.
Full fwell the woods; their very music wakes,
Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increas'd, the diftant bleatings of the hills,
And hollow lows refponfive from the vales,
Whence blending all the fweeten'd zephyr springs.
Mean time refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Beftriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immenfe; and every hue unfolds,
In fair proportion running from the red,
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful Newton, the diffolving clouds
Form, fronting on the fun, thy fhowery prifm;
And to the fage-inftructed eye unfold
The various twine of light, by thee difclos'd
From the white mingling maze. Not fo the boy;
He wondering views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amaz'd
Beholds th' amufive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away. Still night fucceeds,

A foften'd fhade, and faturated earth

Awaits the morning-beam, to give to light,

Rais'd through ten thousand different plaftick tubes,

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The

The balmy treasures of the former day.

Then fpring the living herbs, profufely wild,
O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power
Of botanists to number up their tribes :
Whether he steals along the lonely dale,

In filent fearch; or through the foreft, rank
With what the dull incurious weeds account,
Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain rock,
Fir'd by the nodding verdure of its brow.

With fuch a liberal hand has Nature flung

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Their feeds abroad, blown them about in winds, 230
Innumerous mix'd them with the nurfing mold,
The moistening current, and prolific rain.

But who their virtues can declare? who pierce,
With vifion pure, into these secret stores,

Of health, and life, and joy? The food of man, 235
While yet he liv'd in innocence, and told

A length of golden years; unflefh'd in blood,
A stranger to the favage arts of life,

Death, rapine, carnage, furfeit, and disease;
The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world.

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The first fresh dawn then wak'd the gladden'd race Of uncorrupted man, nor blush'd to fee

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The fluggard fleep beneath its facred beam :
For their light flumbers gently fum'd away;
And up they rofe as vigorous as the fun,
Or to the culture of the willing glebe,
Or to the chearful tendance of the flock.
Meantime the fong went round; and dance and sport,
Wisdom and friendly talk, fucceffive, stole