The very refuse of those harvest fields, Which from his bounteous friendship I enjoy. Then throw that shameful pittance from thy hand, But ill applied to such a rugged task; The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine; If to the various blessings which thy house Has on me lavish'd, thou wilt add that bliss, That dearest bliss, the power of blessing thee!" Here ceased the youth: yet still his speaking eye Express'd the sacred triumph of his soul, With conscious virtue, gratitude, and love, Above the vulgar joy divinely raised. Nor waited he reply. Won by the charm Of goodness irresistible, and all
In sweet disorder lost, she blush'd consent. The news immediate to her mother brought, While, pierced with anxious thought, she pined
The lonely moments for Lavinia's fate; Amazed, and scarce believing what she heard, Joy seized her wither'd veins, and one bright gleam Of setting life shone on her evening hours: Not less enraptured than the happy pair; Who flourish'd long in tender bliss, and rear'd A numerous offspring, lovely like themselves, And good, the grace of all the country round. Defeating oft the labours of the year, The sultry south collects a potent blast. At first, the groves are scarcely seen to stir Their trembling tops; and a still murmur runs Along the soft-inclining fields of corn. But as the aerial tempest fuller swells, And in one mighty stream, invisible, Immense, the whole excited atmosphere Impetuous rushes o'er the sounding world; Strain'd to the root, the stooping forest pours A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves. High beat, the circling mountains eddy in, From the bare wild, the dissipated storm, And send it in a torrent down the vale. Exposed, and naked, to its utmost rage, Through all the sea of harvest rolling round, The billowy plain floats wide; nor can evade, Though pliant to the blast, its seizing force; Or whirl'd in air, or into vacant chaff Shook waste. And sometimes too a burst of rain, Swept from the black horizon, broad, descends In one continuous flood. Still over head
|Fled to some eminence, the husbandman Helpless beholds the miserable wreck Driving along; his drowning ox at once Descending, with his labours scatter'd round, He sees; and instant o'er his shivering thought Comes Winter unprovided, and a train Of claimant children dear. Ye masters, then, Be mindful of the rough laborious hand That sinks you soft in elegance and ease; Be mindful of those limbs in russet clad, Whose toil to yours is warmth and graceful pride; And, oh! be mindful of that sparing board, Which covers yours with luxury profuse, Makes your glass sparkle, and your sense rejoice! Nor cruelly demand what the deep rains And all-involving winds have swept away.
Here the rude clamour of the sportsman's joy, The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn, Would tempt the muse to sing the rural game: How in his mid-career the spaniel struck, Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose, Outstretch'd and finely sensible, draws full, Fearful and cautious, on the latent prey; As in the sun the circling covey bask Their varied plumes, and watchful every way, Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye. Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat Their idle wings, entangled more and more: Nor on the surges of the boundless air, Though borne triumphant, are they safe; the gun, Glanced just, and sudden, from the fowler's eye, O'ertakes their sounding pinions: and again, Immediate, brings them from the towering wing, Dead to the ground; or drives them wide dispersed, Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind. These are not subjects for the peaceful Muse, Nor will she stain with such her spotless song; Then most delighted, when she social sees The whole mix'd animal-creation round Alive and happy. "Tis not joy to her, The falsely cheerful barbarous game of death, This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth Awakes, impatient, with the gleaming morn: When beasts of prey retire, that all night long, Urged by necessity, had ranged the dark, As if their conscious ravage shunn'd the light, Ashamed. Not so the steady tyrant Man, Who with the thoughtless insolence of power
The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and still Inflamed, beyond the most infuriate wrath
The deluge deepens; till the fields around Lie sunk, and flatted, in the sordid wave. Sudder., the ditches swell; the meadows swim. Red, from the hills, innumerable streams Tumultuous roar; and high above its banks The river lift; before whose rushing tide Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and swains, Roll mingled down; all that the winds had spared In one wild moment ruin'd; the big hopes,
And well earn'd treasures of the painful year.
Of the worst monster that e'er roam'd the waste. For sport alone pursues the cruel chase, Amid the beamings of the gentle days. Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage, For hunger kindles you, and lawless want; But lavish fed, in Nature's bounty roll'd, To joy at anguish, and delight in blood, Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.
Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare! Scared from the corn, and now to some lone seat
Retired: the rushy fen; the ragged furze,
Advancing full on the protended spear,
Stretch'd o'er the stony heath; the stubble chapt; | And coward band, that circling wheel aloof.
The thistly lawn; the thick entangled broom; Of the same friendly hue, the wither'd fern; The fallow ground laid open to the sun, Concoctive; and the nodding sandy bank, Hung o'er the mazes of the mountain brook. Vain is her best precaution; though she sits Conceal'd, with folded ears; unsleeping eyes, By Nature raised to take the horizon in ; And head couch'd close betwixt her hairy feet, In act to spring away. The scented dew Betrays her early labyrinth; and deep, In scatter'd sullen openings, far behind, With every breeze she hears the coming storm. But nearer, and more frequent, as it loads The sighing gale, she springs amazed, and all The savage soul of game is up at once: The pack full-opening, various; the shrill horn Resounded from the hills; the neighing steed, Wild for the chase; and the loud hunter's shout; O'er a weak, harmless, flying creature, all Mix'd in mad tumult, and discordant joy.
The stag too, singled from the herd, where long He ranged the branching monarch of the shades, Before the tempest drives. At first, in speed He, sprightly, puts his faith; and, roused by fear, Gives all his swift aerial soul to flight; Against the breeze he darts, that way the more To leave the lessening murderous cry behind: Deception short! though fleeter than the winds Blown o'er the keen-air'd mountain by the north, He bursts the thickets, glances through the glades, And plunges deep into the wildest wood; If slow, yet sure, adhesive to the track Hot-steaming, up behind him come again The inhuman rout, and from the shady depth Expel him, circling through his every shift. He sweeps the forest oft; and sobbing sees The glades, mild opening to the golden day; Where, in kind contest, with his butting friends He wont to struggle, or his loves enjoy. Oft in the full-descending flood he tries To lose the scent, and lave his burning sides: Oft seeks the herd; the watchful herd, alarm'd, With selfish care avoid a brother's woe. What shall he do? His once so vivid nerves, So full of buoyant spirit, now no more Inspire the course; but fainting breathless toil, Sick, seizes on his heart; he stands at bay; And puts his last weak refuge in despair. The big round tears run down his dappled face; He groans in anguish: while the growling pack, Blood-happy, hang at his fair jutting chest, And mark his beauteous chequer'd sides with gore. Of this enough. But if the sylvan youth, Whose fervent blood boils into violence, Must have the chase; behold, despising flight, The roused up lion, resolute, and slow,
Slunk from the cavern, and the troubled wood, See the grim wolf; on him his shaggy foe Vindictive fix, and let the ruffian die: Or, growling horrid, as the brindled boar Grins fell destruction, to the monster's heart Let the dart lighten from the nervous arm. These Britain knows not; give, ye Britons,
Your sportive fury, pitiless, to pour
Loose on the nightly robber of the fold
Him, from his craggy winding haunts unearth'd, Let all the thunder of the chase pursue. Throw the broad ditch behind you; o'er the hedge High bound, resistless; nor the deep morass Refuse, but through the shaking wilderness Pick your nice way; into the perilous flood Bear fearless, of the raging instinct full; And as you ride the torrent, to the banks Your triumph sound sonorous, running round, From rock to rock, in circling echoes tost; Then scale the mountains to their woody tops; Rush down the dangerous steep; and o'er the lawn,
In fancy swallowing up the space between, Pour all your speed into the rapid game. For happy he! who tops the wheeling chase; Has every maze evolved, and every guile Disclosed; who knows the merits of the pack; Who saw the villain seized, and dying hard, Without complaint, though by a hundred mouths Relentless torn: O glorious he, beyond His daring peers! when the retreating horn Call them to ghostly halls of gray renown, With woodland honours graced; the fox's fur Depending decent from the roof: and spread Round the drear walls, with antic figures fierce, The stag's large front: he then is loudest heard, When the night staggers with severer toils, With feats Thessalian Centaurs never knew, And their repeated wonders shake the dome.
But first the fuel'd chimney blazes wide; The tankards foam; and the strong table groans Beneath the smoking sirloin, stretch'd immense From side to side; in which, with desperate knife, They deep incision make, and talk the while Of England's glory, ne'er to be defaced While hence they borrow vigour: or amain Into the pasty plunged, at intervals, If stomach keen can intervals allow, Relating all the glories of the chase. Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst Produce the mighty bowl; the mighty bowl, Swell'd high with fiery juice, steams liberal round A potent gale, delicious, as the breath Of Maia to the love-sick shepherdess, On violets diffused, while soft she hears Her panting shepherd stealing to her arms
Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn, Mature and perfect, from his dark retreat Of thirty years; and now his honest front Flames in the light refulgent, not afraid E'en with the vineyard's best produce to vie. To cheat the thirsty moments, whist awhile Walks his dull round beneath a cloud of smoke, Wreath'd, fragrant, from the pipe; or the quick dice,
In thunder leaping from the box, awake
Far be the spirit of the chase from them! Uncomely courage, unbeseeming skill; To spring the fence, to rein the prancing steed, The cap, the whip, the masculine attire; In which they roughen to the sense, and all The winning softness of their sex is lost. In them 'tis graceful to dissolve at wo; With every motion, every word, to wave Quick o'er the kindling cheek the ready blush; And from the smallest violence to shrink
The sounding gammon: while romp-loving miss Unequal, then the loveliest in their fears;
Is haul'd about, in gallantry robust.
At last these puling idlenesses laid Aside, frequent and full, the dry divan Close in firm circle; and set, ardent, in For serious drinking. Nor evasion sly, Nor sober shift, is to the puking wretch Indulged apart; but earnest, brimming bowls Lave every soul, the table floating round, And pavement, faithless to the fuddled foot. Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk, Vociferous at once from twenty tongues, Reels fast from theme to theme; from horses, hounds,
To church or mistress, politics or ghost, In endless mazes, intricate, perplex'd. Meantime, with sudden interruption, loud,
The impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart; That moment touch'd is every kindred soul; And, opening in a full-mouth'd cry of joy, The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse go round; While, from their slumbers shook, the kennel'd hounds
Mix in the music of the day again.
As when the tempest, that has vex'd the deep The dark night long, with fainter murmurs falls; So gradual sinks their mirth. Their feeble tongues,
Unable to take up the cumbrous word,
Lie quite dissolved. Before their maudlin eyes, Seen dim and blue, the double tapers dance, Like the sun wading through the misty sky. Then, sliding soft, they drop. Confused above, Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers, As if the table e'en itself was drunk, Lie a wet broken scene; and wide, below, Is heap'd the social slaughter: where astride The lubber Power in filthy triumph sits, Slumbrous, inclining still from side to side,
And by this silent adulation, soft,
To their protection more engaging Man. O may their eyes no miserable sight, Save weeping lovers, see! a nobler game, Through love's enchanting wiles pursued, yet fled, In chase ambiguous. May their tender limbs Float in the loose simplicity of dress! And, fashion'd all to harmony, alone Know they to seize the captivated soul In rapture warbled from love-breathing lips; To teach the lute to languish; with smooth step, Disclosing motion in its every charm,
To swim along, and swell the mazy dance; To train the foliage o'er the snowy lawn; To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful page; To lend new flavour to the fruitful year, And heighten Nature's dainties: in their race To rear their graces into second life; To give society its highest taste; Well order'd home man's best delight to make; And by submissive wisdom, modest skill, With every gentle care-eluding art, To raise the virtues, animate the bliss, And sweeten all the toils of human life: This be the female dignity, and praise.
Ye swains, now hasten to the hazel bank; Where, down yon dale, the widely winding brook Falls hoarse from steep to steep. In close array, Fit for the thickets and the tangling shrub, Ye virgins, come. For you their latest song The woodlands raise; the clustering nuts for you The lover finds amid the secret shade; And, where they burnish on the topmost bough, With active vigour crushes down the tree; Or shakes them ripe from the resigning husk, A glossy shower, and of an ardent brown, As are the ringlets of Melinda's hair: Melinda! form'd with every grace complete;
And steeps them drench'd in potent sleep till Yet these neglecting, above beauty wise,
Perhaps some doctor, of tremendous paunch, Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink, Outlives them all; and from his buried flock Retiring, full of rumination sad,
Laments the weakness of these latter times. But if the rougher sex by this fierce sport Is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy E'er stain the bosom of the British Fair.
And far transcending such a vulgar praise.
Hence from the busy joy-resounding fields, In cheerful error, let us tread the maze |Of Autumn, unconfined; and taste, revived, The breath of orchard big with bending fruit, Obedient to the breeze and beating ray, From the deep-loaded bough a mellow shower Incessant melts away. The juicy pear Lies, in a soft profusion, scatter'd round.
A various sweetness swells the gentle race; By Nature's all-refining hand prepared; Of temper'd sun, and water, earth, and air, In ever changing composition mix'd.
Such, falling frequent through the chiller night, The fragrant stores, the wide projected heaps Of apples, which the lusty-handed Year, Innumerous, o'er the blushing orchard shakes. A various spirit, fresh, delicious, keen, Dwells in their gelid pores; and, active, points The piercing cyder for the thirsty tongue: Thy native theme, and boon inspirer too, Philips, Pomona's bard, the second thou Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfetter'd verse, With British freedom sing the British song: How, from Silurian vats, high sparkling wines Foam in transparent floods; some strong, to cheer The wintry revels of the labouring hind; And tasteful some, to cool the summer hours. In this glad season, while his sweetest beams The sun sheds equal o'er the meeken'd day; Oh lose me in the green delightful walks Of, Dodington, thy seat, serene and plain; Where simple Nature reigns; and every view, Diffusive, spreads the pure Dorsetian downs, In boundless prospect; yonder shagg'd with wood, Here rich with harvest, and there white with flocks!
Meantime the grandeur of thy lofty dome, Far splendid, seizes on the ravish'd eye. New beauties rise with each revolving day; New columns swell; and still the fresh Spring finds
Low bend the weighty boughs. The clusters clear,
Half through the foliage seen, or ardent flame, Or shine transparent; while perfection breathes White o'er the turgent film the living dew. As thus they brighten with exalted juice, Touch'd into flavour by the mingling ray; The rural youth and virgins o'er the field, Each fond for each to cull the autumnal prime, Exulting rove, and speak the vintage nigh. Then comes the crushing swain; the country floats,
And foams unbounded with the marshy flood; That by degrees fermented and refined, Round the raised nations pours the cup of joy: The claret smooth, red as the lip we press In sparkling fancy, while we drain the bowl; The mellow-tasted burgundy; and quick, As is the wit it gives, the gay champagne.
Now, by the cool declining year condensed, Descend the copious exhalations, check'd As up the middle sky unseen they stole, And roll the doubling fogs around the hill. No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime, Who pours a sweep of rivers from his sides, | And high between contending kingdoms rears The rocky long division, fills the view With great variety; but in a night
Of gathering vapour, from the baffled sense Sinks dark and dreary. Thence expanding far, The huge dusk, gradual, swallows up the plain: | Vanish the woods: the dim-seen river seems Sullen, and slow, to roll the misty wave.
New plants to quicken, and new groves to green. E'en in the height of noon oppress'd, the sun Full of thy genius all! the Muses' seat: Where in the secret bower, and winding walk, For virtuous Young and thee they twine the bay. Here wandering oft, fired with the restless thirst Of thy applause, I solitary court
The inspiring breeze: and meditate the book Of Nature ever open; aiming thence, Warm from the heart, to learn the moral song. Here, as I steal along the sunny wall, Where Autumn basks, with fruit empurpled deep, My pleasing theme continual prompts my thought: Presents the downy peach; the shining plum: The ruddy, fragrant nectarine; and dark, Beneath his ample leaf, the luscious fig. The vine too here her curling tendrils shoots; Hangs out her clusters, glowing to the south; And scarcely wishes for a warmer sky.
Turn we a moment Fancy's rapid flight To vigorous soils, and climes of fair extent; Where, by the potent sun elated high, The vineyard swells refulgent on the day; Spreads o'er the vale; or up the mountain climbs, Profuse; and drinks amid the sunny rocks, From cliff to cliff increased, the heighten'd blaze.
Sheds weak, and blunt, his wide-refracted ray; Whence glaring oft, with many a broaden'd orb, He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth, Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life Objects appear; and, wilder'd, o'er the waste The shepherd stalks gigantic. Till at last Wreath'd dun around, in deeper circles still Successive closing, sits the general fog Unbounded o'er the world; and, mingling thick, A formless gray confusion covers all. As when of old (so sung the Hebrew Bard) Light, uncollected, through the chaos urged Its infant way; nor Order yet had drawn His lovely train from out the dubious gloom.
These roving mists, that constant now begin To smoke along the hilly country, these, With weightier rains, and melted Alpine snows, The mountain cisterns fill, those ample stores Of water, scoop'd among the hollow rocks; Whence gush the streams, the ceaseless fountains play,
And their unfailing wealth the rivers draw. Some sages say, that, where the numerous wave For ever lashes the resounding shore,
Drill'd through the sandy stratum, every way, The waters with ne sandy stratum rise; Amid whose angles infinitely strain'd, They joyful leave their jaggy salts behind, And clear and sweeten as they soak along. Nor stops the restless fluid, mounting still, Though oft amidst the irriguous vale it springs; But to the mountain courted by the sand, That leads it darkling on in faithful maze, Far from the parent-main, it boils again Fresh into day; and all the glittering hill
Is bright with spouting rills. But hence this vain Amusive dream! why should the waters love To take so far a journey to the hills, When the sweet valleys offer to their toil Inviting quiet, and a nearer bed? Or if by blind ambition led astray,
They must aspire; why should they sudden stop Among the broken mountain's rushy dells, And, ere they gain its highest peak, desert
His subterranean wonders spread! unveil The miny caverns, blazing on the day, Of Abyssinia's cloud compelling cliffs, And of the bending Mountains* of the Moon! O'ertopping all these giant sons of earth, Let the dire Andes, from the radiant line Stretch'd to the stormy seas that thunder round The southern pole, their hideous deeps unfold!
Amazing scene! Behold! the glooms disclose; I see the rivers in their infant beds! Deep, deep I hear them labouring to get free; I see the leaning strata, artful ranged; The gaping fissures to receive the rains, The melting snows, and ever-dripping fogs. Strow'd bibulous above I see the sands, The pebbly gravel next, the layers then Of mingled moulds, of more retentive earths The gutter'd rocks and mazy-running clefts; That, while the stealing moisture they transmit, Retard its motion, and forbid its waste.
The attractive sand that charm'd their course so Beneath the incessant weeping of these drains, long?
Besides, the hard agglomerating salts, The spoil of ages, would impervious choke Their secret channels; or, by slow degrees, High as the hills protrude the swelling vales: Old Ocean too, suck'd through the porous globe, Had long ere now forsook his horrid bed, And brought Deucalion's watery times again.
Say then, where lurk the vast eternal springs, That, like creating nature, lie conceal'd From mortal eye, yet with their lavish stores Refresh the globe, and all its joyous tribes! O thou pervading Genius, given to man, To trace the secrets of the dark abyss, O lay the mountains bare! and wide display Their hidden structure to the astonish'd view! Strip from the branching Alps their piny load; The huge incumbrance of horrific woods From Asian Taurus, from Imaus stretch'd Athwart the roving Tartar's sullen bounds; Give opening Hemus to my searching eye, And high Olympus pouring many a stream! O from the sounding summits of the north, The Dofrine hills, through Scandinavia roll'd To farthest Lapland and the frozen main; From lofty Caucasus, far seen by those Who in the Caspian and black Euxine toil; From cold Riphean rocks, which the wild Russ Believes the stony girdle of the world: And all the dreadful mountains, wrapp'd in storm, Whence wide Siberia draws her lonely floods; sweep the eternal snows! hung o'er the deep, That ever works beneath his sounding base, Bid Atlas, propping heaven, as poets feign,
The Moscovites call the Riphean Mountains Weliki Camenypoys, that is, the great stony Girdle, wecause they sup pose thon) to encompass the whole earth.
I see the rocky siphons stretch'd immense, The mighty reservoirs of harden'd chalk, Or stiff compacted clay, capacious form'd: O'erflowing thence, the congregated stores, The crystal treasures of the liquid world, Through the stirr'd sands a bubbling passage burst; And welling out, around the middle steep, Or from the bottoms of the bosom'd hills, In pure effusion flow. United, thus, The exhaling sun, the vapour-burden'd air, The gelid mountains, that to rain condensed These vapours in continual current draw, And send them o'er the fair-divided earth, In bounteous rivers to the deep again, A social commerce hold, and firm support The full-adjusted harmony of things.
When Autumn scatters his departing gleams, Warn'd of approaching Winter, gather'd, play The swallow-people; and toss'd wide around, O'er the calm sky, in convolution swift, The feather'd eddy floats: rejoicing once, Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire; In clusters clung, beneath the mouldering bank, And where, unpierced by frost, the cavern sweats, Or rather into warmer climes convey'd, With other kindred birds of season, there They twitter cheerful, till the vernal months Invite them welcome back: for, thronging, now Innumerous wings are in commotion all.
Where the Rhine loses his majestic force In Belgian plains, won from the raging deep By diligence amazing, and the strong Unconquerable hand of Liberty, The stork-assembly meets; for many a day, Consulting deep, and various, ere they take
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