AUTUMN.

THE ARGUMENT.

The subject propos'd. Addressed to M.' ONSLOW. A prospect of the fields ready for harvest. Reflections in praise of industry raised by that view. Reaping. A tale relative to it. A harvest storm. Shooting and hunting, their barbarity. A ludicrous account of fox hunting. A view of an orchard. Wallfruit. A vineyard. A description of fogs, frequent in the latter part of Autumn: whence a digression, enquiring into the rise of fountains and rivers. Birds of season considered, that now shift their habitation. The prodigious number of them that cover the northern and western islands of SCOTLAND. Hence a view of the country. A prospect of the discoloured, fading woods. After a gentle dusky day, moon-light. Autumnal meteors. Morning: to which succeeds a calm, pure, sunshiny day, such as usually shuts up the season. The harvest being gathered in, the country dissolved in joy. The whole concludes with a panegyric on a philosophical country life.

CROWN'D with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf, While AUTUMN, nodding o'er the yellow plain, Comes jovial on; the Doric reed once more, Well pleas'd, I tune. Whate'er the Wintry frost Nitrous prepar'd; the various-blossom'd Spring Put in white promise forth; and Summer Suns Concocted strong; rush boundless now to view, Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme.

ONSLOW! the Muse ambitious of thy name, To grace, inspire, and dignify her song, Would from the Publick Voice thy gentle ear A while engage. Thy noble cares she knows, The patriot virtues that distend thy thought, Spread on thy front, and in thy bosom glow;

While listening senates hang upon thy tongue,
Devolving thro' the maze of eloquence
A roll of periods, sweeter than her song.
But she too pants for public virtue, she,
Tho' weak of power, yet strong in ardent will,
Whene'er her country rushes on her heart,
Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries

To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame.

WHEN the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days, And Libra weighs in equal scale the year;

From heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence shook Of parting Summer, a serener blue

With golden light enlivened, wide invests

The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise,

Sweet-beam'd, and shedding oft thro' lucid clouds
A pleasing calm; while broad and brown, below
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head;

Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:

A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air

Falls from its poize, and gives the breeze to blow:

Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;

The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By fits effulgent gilds th' illumin'd field,

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And black by fits the shadows sweep along,
A gaily-checker'd heart-expanding view
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.

THESE are thy blessings, INDUSTRY! rough power!
Whom Labour still attends, and Sweat, and Pain;
Yet the kind source of every gentle art,
And all the soft civility of life;

Raiser of human kind by Nature cast,
Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various seeds of art deep in the mind
Implanted, and profusely pour'd around
Materials infinite; but idle all,

Still unexerted, in th'unconscious breast
Slept the lethargic powers; corruption still,
Voracious, swallow'd what the liberal hand
Of bounty scatter'd o'er the savage year:
And still the sad barbarian roving, mix'd
With beasts of prey; or for his acorn-meal
Fought the fierce tusky boar; a shivering wretch!
Aghast, and comfortless, when the bleak north,
With Winter charg'd, let the mix'd tempest fly,
Hail, rain, and snow, and bitter-breathing frost: