Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,
Wherefreshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops
From the bent bush, as thro' the verdant maze 105
Of fweet-briar hedges I pursue my walks
Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend
Some eminence, AUGUSTA, in thy plains,.
And see the country, far diffus'd around.
One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower 110
Of mingled blossoms; where the raptur'd eye
Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath
The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies..
IF, brush'd from Russian wilds, a cutting gale
Rise not, and scatter from his humid wings
The clammy mildew; or, dry-blowing, breathe
Untimely frost; before whose baleful blast
The full-blown spring thro' all her foliage shrinks,
Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste..
For oft, engender'd by the hazy north,
Myriads on myriads, infect-armies waft
Keen in the poison'd breeze; and wasteful eat,
Thro' buds and bark, into the blackened core,
Their eager way. A feeble race! yet oft
The facred sons of vengeance! on whose course 125
Corrofive famine waits, and kills the year.
To check this plague the skilful farmer chaff,
And blazing straw, before his orchard burns ;
Till, all involv'd in smoke, the latent foe
From every cranny suffocated falls:
Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust
Of pepper, fatal to the frofty tribe :
Or, when th' envenom'd leaf begins to curl,
With sprinkled water drowns them in in their neft;
Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill,
The little trooping birds unwifely scares.
Be patient, swains; these cruel-feeming winds Blow not in vain. Far hence hey keep, repress'd, Those deepening clouds on clouds, furcharg'd withrain, That o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne, In endless train, would quench the fummer-blaze, And, chearless, drown the crude unripened year.
THE north-east spends his rage; he now shut up Within his iron cave, th' effufive fouth Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven 145 Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent. At first a dusky wreath they feem to rife, Scarce staining ether; but by fast degrees, In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour fails
Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep
Sits on th' horizon round a fettled gloom:
Not fuch as wintry storms on mortals shed,
Oppreffing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope and every joy,
The with of Nature. Gradual, finks the breeze, 155
Into a perfect calm; that not a breath
Is heard to quiver thro' the clofing woods,
Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves.
Of afpin tall. Th' uncurling floods, diffus'd
In glassy breadth, seem thro' delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis filence all,.
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and mute-imploring eye
The falling verdure. Hush'd in short suspence,
The plumy people streak their wings with oil, 163,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;
And wait th' approaching fign to strike, at once,
Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,
And forests seem, impatient, to demand
The promis'd sweetness. Man fuperior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise,
And looking lively gratitude. At laft,
The clouds consign their treasures to the fields ;
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,
In large effusion, o'er the freshened world.
The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard,
By such as wander thro' the forest-walks,
Beneath th' umbrageous multitude of leaves.
But who can hold the shade, while Heaven descends 180
In univerfal bounty, shedding herbs,
And fruits, and flowers, on Nature's ample lap?
Swift fancy fir'd anticipates their growth;
And, while the milky nutriment distils,
Beholds the kindling country colour round.
THUS all day long the full-distended clouds Indulge their genial stores, and well-shower'd earth Is deep enrich'd with vegetable life; Till, in the western sky, the downward sun
Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush
Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam.
The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes
Th' illumin'd mountain, thro' the forest streams,
Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,
Far fmoaking o'er th' interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.
Moift, bright, and green, the landskip laughs around.
Full swell the woods; their every music wakes,
Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increas'd, the distant bleatings of the hills,
The hollow lows responsive from the vales,
Whence blending all the sweetened zephyr springs.
Mean time refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense; and every hue unfolds,
In fair proportion running from the red,
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful NEWTON, the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting on the fun, thy showry prism;
And to the sage-instructed eye unfold
The various twine of light, by thee disclos'd
From the white mingling maze. Not so the swain;
He wondering views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amaz'd
Beholds th' amufive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away. Still night suceeds,.
A foftened shade, and faturated earth
Awaits the morning-beam, to give to light,
Rais'd thro' ten thousand different plastic tubes, 2200
The balmy treasures of the former day.
THEN spring the living herbs, profusely wild, O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power Of botanist to number up their tribes:
Whether he steals along the lonely dale,
In filent search; or thro' the forest, rank
With what the dull incurious weeds account,
Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain-rock,
Fir'd by the nodding verdure of its brow.
With fuch a liberal hand has Nature flung
Their feeds abroad, blown them about in winds,
Innumerous mix'd them with the nurfing mold,
The moistening current, and prolific rain..
But who their virtues can declare? Who pierce, With vifion pure, into these secret stores Of health, and life, and joy? The food of Man, While yet he liv'd in innocence, and told A length of golden years; unflesh'd in blood, A stranger to the savage arts of life, Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease;
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