To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs;
To monarchs dignity, to judges sense,
To artists ingenuity and skill;

To me an unambitious mind, content
In the low vale of life, that early felt
A wifh for ease and leisure, and ere long
Found here that leifure and that ease I wish'd.

In fpite of gravity, and fage remark

That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a fmile. With eye afkance
I view the muscular proportion'd limb
Transform'd to a lean fhank. The shapeless pair,
As they defign'd to mock me, at my fide
Take step for step; and as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plaister'd wall,
Prepoft'rous fight! the legs without the man.
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,
And coarser grafs upfpearing o'er the reft,
Of fate unfightly and unfeen, now fhine
Confpicuous, and in bright apparel clad,
And fledg'd with icy feathers, nod fuperb.

The cattle mourn in corners where the fence
Screens them, and feem half petrify'd to fleep
In unrecumbent fadness. There they wait
Their wonted fodder, not like hung'ring man
Fretful if unfupply'd, but filent, meek,
And patient of the flow-pac'd fwain's delay.
He from the stack carves out th' accustom❜d load,
Deep-plunging, and again deep plunging oft
His broad keen knife into the folid mass;
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,

THE

TAS K.

воок

V.

THE WINTER MORNING WALK.

"IS_morning ; and the fun with ruddy orb
Afcending, fires the horizon: while the
clouds

That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,

Resemble most some city in a blaze,

Seen through the leaflefs wood. His flanting ray

Slides ineffe&tual down the fnowy vale,
And tinging all with his own rofy hue,
From ev'ry herb and ev'ry spiry blade
Stretches a length of fhadow o'er the field.
Mine, fpindling into longitude immense,

The feather'd tribes domeftic. Half on wing,
And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood,
Conscious, and fearful of too deep a plunge.
The íparrows peep, and quit the fhelt'ring eaves
To feize the fair occafion. Well they eye
The scatter'd grain, and thievishly resolv'd
'T' escape th' impending famine, often scar'd
As oft return, a pert voracious kind.

Clean riddance quickly made, one only care
Remains to each, the search of funny nook,
Or fhed impervious to the blast. Refign'd
To fad neceffity, the cock foregoes
His wonted strut, and wading at their head
With well-confider'd fteps, feems to refent
His alter'd gait and stateliness retrench'd.
How find the myriads, that in summer cheer
The hills and vallies with their ceaseless songs,
Due fuftenance, or where fubfift they now?
Earth yields them nought: the imprison'd worm is
fafe

Beneath the frozen clod; all feeds of herbs
Lie cover'd close, and berry-bearing thorns
That feed the thrush (whatever some fuppofe)
Afford the fmaller minstrels no fupply.
The long protracted rigor of the year