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India.

She mounts, and, leffening to the fight,
Salutes the blythe return of light,
And high her tuneful track purfues
"Mid the dim rainbow's fcattered hues.
Beneath a willow long forfook,
The fisher feeks his 'cuftomed nook,
And, bursting thro' the crackling fedge
That crowns the current's caverned edge,
He ftartles from the bordering wood
The bashful wild-duck's early brood.

13.

WARTON.

INDIA.

WHERE facred Ganges pours along the plain,
And Indus rolls to fwell the eastern main,
What awful feenes the curious mind delight,
What wonders burst upon the dazzled fight!
There giant palms lift high their tufted heads;
The plantain wide his graceful foliage spreads;
Wild in the woods the active monkey springs,
The chattering parrot claps his painted wings;
Mid tall bamboos lies hid the deadly fnake,
The tiger couches in the tangled brake;

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The fpotted axis bounds in fear away,
The leopard darts on his defenceless prey.
'Mid reedy pools and antient forests rude,
Cool, peaceful haunts of awful folitude!
The huge rhinoceros rends the crashing boughs,
And ftately elephants untroubled browse.
Two tyrant feafons rule the wide domain,
Scorch with dry heat, or drench with floods of rain:
Now feverish herds rush madding o'er the plains,
And cool in fhady ftreams their throbbing veins,
The birds drop lifelefs from the filent fpray,
And nature faints beneath the fiery day;
Then burfts the deluge on the finking fhore,
And teeming Plenty empties all her ftore.

ORIGINAL.

MIDNIGHT.

'Twas dead of night, when weary bodies close
Their eyes in balmy fleep, and foft repose;
The winds no longer whifper through the woods,
Nor murmuring tides difturb the gentle floods.
The ftars in filent order moved around,

And peace with downy wings was brooding on the ground.

The

Fortitude.To Morning.

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The flocks and herds, and particolour'd fowl, Which haunt the woods, or fwim the reedy pool, Stretched on the quiet earth fecurely lay, Forgetting the past labours of the day.

DRYDEN.

FORTITUDE.

The bold fwimmer joys not fo

To feel the proud waves under him, and beat
With ftrong repelling arm the billowy furge;
The generous courfer does not fo exult
To tofs his floating mane against the wind,
And neigh amidst the thunder of the war,-
As Virtue to oppofe her fwelling breaft
Like a firm fhield against the darts of Fate.

MRS. BARBAULD.

TO MORNING.

HAIL to thy living light,

Ambrofial Morn! all hail thy roseat ray,

That bids young Nature all her charms difplay
In varied beauty bright;

That bids each dewy-fpangled flowret rife,
And dart around its vermeil dyes;

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16

Trees and Plants.

Bids filver luftre grace yon sparkling tide,

That winding warbles down the mountain's fides

MASON

TREES AND PLANTS.

SAY, know'st thou why the beech delights the glade,

With boughs extended and a rounder fhade,
Whilft towering firs in conic forms arise,

And with a pointed fpear divide the skies?
Or why again the changing oak fhould shed
The yearly honours of his stately head,
Whilft the distinguished yew is ever feen
Unchanged his branch, and permanent his green?
Wanting the fun why does the caltha fade?
Why does the cypress flourish in the fhade?
The fig and date, why love they to remain
In middle station and an even plain,

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Whilft in the lower marsh the gourd is found,
And while the hill with olive fhade is crowned?
Why does one climate and one soil endue

The blufhing poppy with a crimson hue,
Yet leave the lily pale and tinge the violet blue ?.

The

Trees and Plants.

17

The twining jasmine and the blushing rofe
With lavish grace their morning scents disclose,
The fragrant tuberofe and jonquil declare
The ftronger impulfe of an evening air.
Whence has the tree, refolve me, or the flower,
A various inftinct, or a different power?
Why should one earth, one clime, one stream,
one breath

Raise this to strength and ficken that to death?
Whence does it happen that the plant, which

well

We name the fenfitive, should move and feel?
Whence know her leaves to anfwer her command,
And with quick horror fly the neighbouring hand?
Along the funny bank, or watery mead,
Ten thousand ftalks their various bloffoms fpread.
Peaceful and lowly in their native foil,
They neither know to fpin nor care to toil;
Yet with confeft magnificence deride
Our vile attire, and impotence of pride.

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