22 FROM RURAL SPORTS. FROM RURAL SPORTS. 'Tis not that rural sports alone invite, In the revolving labors of the year. When the fresh Spring in all her state is crowned, And high luxuriant grass o'erspreads the ground, The laborer with a bending scythe is seen, Shaving the surface of the waving green; Of all her native pride disrobes the land, And meads lays waste before his sweeping hand; While with the mounting sun the meadow glows, The fading herbage round he loosely throws; But, if some sign portend a lasting shower Th' experienced swain foresees the coming hour; His sunburnt hands the scattering fork forsake, And ruddy damsels ply the saving rake; In rising hills the fragrant harvest grows, And spreads along the field in equal rows. GAY. ODE TO LEVEN WATER. 23 ODE TO LEVEN WATER. ON Leven's banks, while free to rove, And tune the rural pipe to love, I envied not the happiest swain That ever trod the Arcadian plain. Pure stream, in whose transparent wave My youthful limbs I wont to lave; No torrents stain thy limpid source, No rocks impede thy dimpling course, Devolving from thy parent lake, Still on thy banks, so gaily green, May numerous herds and flocks be seen, 24 A WISH And lasses chanting o'er the pail, * And shepherds piping in the dale; SMOLLETT. A WISH. 1782. MINE be a cot beside the hill; A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear; The swallow oft, beneath my thatch, Around my ivied porch shall spring TO A SKYLARK. The village church among the trees, And point with taper spire to heaven. TO A SKYLARK. ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring warbler!-that love-prompted strain Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing Leave to the nightingale her shady wood,-- 4 25 26 ENGLISH SCENERY. Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Type of the wise who soar, but never roam; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home. WORDSWORTH, ENGLISH SCENERY. How oft upon yon eminence our pace Has slackened to a pause, and we have borne And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene. Thence with what pleasure have we just discerned The distant plough slow moving, and beside His laboring team, that swerved not from the track, Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain |