Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam.
The rapid radiance inftantaneous strikes
Th' illumin'd mountain, through the forest streams,
Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mift,
Far fmoaking o'er th' interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.
Moist, 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 distant bleatings of the hills,
And hollow lows refponfive from the vales,
Whence blending all the sweeten'd zephyr springs.
Mean time refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Beftriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense; 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-instructed eye unfold
The various twine of light, by thee disclos'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' amusive 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,
The balmy treasures of the former day.
Then spring the living herbs, profufely wild,
O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power
Of botanifts to number up their tribes:
Whether he steals along the lonely dale,
In filent fearch; or through the forest, rank
With what the dull incurious weeds account,
Burfts 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
Their feeds abroad, blown them about in winds, 230
Innumerous mix'd them with the nursing mold,
The moistening current, and prolific rain.
But who their virtues can declare? who pierce,
With vision 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; unflesh'd in blood,
A ftranger to the favage arts of life,
Death, rapine, carnage, furfeit, and disease;
The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world.
The firft fresh dawn then wak'd the gladden'd race Of uncorrupted man, nor blush'd to fee
The fluggard fleep beneath its facred beam :
For their light flumbers gently fum'd
And up they rose 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,
Wifdom and friendly talk, fucceffive, stole
"Et nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis parturit arbos,
"Nunc frondent fylvæ, nunc formofiffimus annus."
The fubject propofed. Infcribed to the Countess of Hertford. The Seafon is defcribed as it affects the various parts of Nature, ascending from the lower to the higher; with digreffions arifing from the subject. Its influence on inanimate matter, on vegetables, on brute animals, and, laft, on man; concluding with a diffuafive from the wild and irregular paffion of love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind.
COME, gentle Spring, ethereal Mildness, come,
And from the bofom of yon dropping cloud,
While mufic wakes around, veil'd in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains defcend.
O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts
With unaffected grace, or walk the plain
With innocence and meditation join'd
In foft affemblage, liften to my fong,
Which thy own Season paints; when Nature all
Is blooming and benevolent, like thee.
And fee where furly Winter paffes off,
Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blafts:
His blafts obey, and quit the howling hill,
The fhatter'd foreft, and the ravag'd vale;
While fofter gales succeed, at whose kind touch,
Diffolving fnows in livid torrents loft,
The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.
As yet the trembling year is unconfirm❜d,
And Winter oft at eve refumes the breeze,
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving fleets
Deform the day delightless: fo that fcarce
The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulpht
To fhake the founding marsh; or from the fhore
The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath,
And fing their wild notes to the listening waste.
At laft from Aries rolls the bounteous fun,
And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more
Th' expanfive atmosphere is cramp'd with cold;
But, full of life and vivifying foul,
Lifts the light clouds fublime, and spreads them thin,
Fleecy and white, o'er all-furrounding heaven.
Forth fly the tepid airs; and unconfin'd, Unbinding earth, the moving foftnefs ftrays. Joyous, th' impatient husbandman perceives Relenting Nature, and his lufty fteers
Drives from their ftalls, to where the well-us'd plough, Lies in the furrow, loofen'd from the froft.
There, unrefusing, to the harness'd yoke
They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil,
|