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 fociety its highest taste;
Well-ordered Home Man's best delight to make;
And by fubmissive 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 wildly-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 compleat,
Yet these neglecting, above beauty wife,
And far tranfcending fuch a vulgar praife.
HENCE from the busy joy-refounding fields,
In chearful error, let us tread the maze
Of Autumn, unconfin'd; and taste, reviv'd,
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 ;
Ey Nature's all-refining hand prepar'd;
Of temper'd fun, and water, earth, and air,
In ever-changing composition mixt.
Such, falling frequent thro' the chiller night,
The fragrant stores, the wide-projected heaps 550
Of apples, which the lufty-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,
PHILLIPS, Pomona's bard, the second thou
Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfetter'd verse,
With BRITISH freedom sing the BRITISH fong:
How, from Silurian vats, high-sparkling wines 560
Foam in transparent floods; some strong, to cheer
The wintry revels of the labouring hind;
And tasteful fome, to cool the fummer-hours.
In this glad feafon, while his sweetest beams The fun sheds equal o'er the meeken'd day; Oh lose me in the green delightful walks Of, DODINGTON, thy feat, serene and plain; Where simple Nature reigns; and every view, Diffusive, spreads the pure Dorsetian downs, In boundless profpect; yonder shagg'd with wood, Here rich with harvest, and there white with flocks! Mean time the grandeur of thy lofty dome,
Far-fplendid, feizes on the ravish'd eye.
New beauties rife with each revolving day;
New columns swell; and still the fresh Spring finds
New plants to quicken, and new groves to green.
Full of thy genius all! the Muses' feat;
Where in the secret bower, and winding walk,
For virtuous YOUNG and thee they twine the bay.
Here wandering oft, fir'd with the restless thirst 580
Of thy applause, I folitary court
Th' inspiring breeze: and meditate the book
Of Nature ever open; aiming thence,
Warm from the heart, to learn the moral fong.
Here, as I steal along the funny 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 fouth;
And scarcely wishes for a warmer sky.
TURN we a moment Fancy's rapid flight To vigorous foils, 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, Profufe; and drinks amid the funny rocks, From cliff to cliff encreas'd, the heightened blaze. Low bend the weighty boughs. The clusters clear, Half thro' 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 th' autumnal prime, Exulting rove, and speak the vintage nigh. Then comes the crushing swain; the country floats, And foams unbounded with the mashy flood; That by degrees fermented, and refin'd,
Round the rais'd nations pours the cup of joy:
The claret smooth, red as the lip we press
In sparkling fancy, while we drain the bowl; 615
The mellow-tafted burgundy; and quick,
As is the wit it gives, the gay champaign.
Now, by the cool declining year condens'd,
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 flow, to rowl the misty wave.
Even in the height of noon opprest, the fun
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 thro' the turbid air, beyond the life
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