Thou smiling Nature's universal robe! United light and shade! where the sight

With growing strength, and ever-new delight.'

FROM the moist meadow to the withered

hill,

Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs, And swells, and deepens, to the cherish'd eye. The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy gro

Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,
Till the whole leafy forest stands display'd,
In full luxuriance, to the sighing gales;
Where the deer rustle thro' the twining brake,
And the birds sing conceal'd. At once ar-

In all the colours of the flushing year,
By Nature's swift and secret-working hand,
The garden glows, and fills the liberal air
With lavish fragrance; while the promis'd

fruit

Lies yet a little embryo, unperceiv'd,

Within its crimson folds.

100

Now from the town, Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome

damps,

Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,

Where freshness breathes, and dash the trem bling "drops

From the bent bush, as thro' the verdant

Of sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk;
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

Of mingled blossoms; where the raptur'd eye Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.

The clammy mildew; or, dry-blowing, breathe Untimely frost; before whose baseful blast. The full-blown spring thro' all her foliage shrinks,

120

Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste.
For oft, engender'd by the hazy north,
Myriads on myriads, insect-armies waft.
Keen in the poison'd breeze; and wasteful

eat,

Thro' buds and bark, into the blackened

core,

Their cager way. A feeble race! yet oft

The sacred sons of vengeance! on whose

course

125 Corrosive 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 frosty tribe:

BE patients swains; these cruel-seeming winds

Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep, re

press'd

Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharg'd with rain,

That oer the vast Atlantic hither borne, 140 In endless train: would quench the summerblaze,

And, chearless, drown the crude unripened

year.

THE north-east spends his rage; he now

Within his iron cave,

Warms the wide air,

shut up

th' effusive south
and o'er the void of
heaven

145

Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent.

At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining aether; but by fast degrees,
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails
Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep 150
Sits on th' horizon round a settled gloom.
Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed,
Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope and every joy,
The wish of Nature. Gradual

breeze

sinks the

155

Into a perfect calm; that not a breath
Is heard to quiver thro' the closing woo ds,
Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves
Of aspin tall. Th' uncurling floods, diffus'd
In glassy breadth, seem thro' delusive lapse 160
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence 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
165

oil,

To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;

And wait th' approaching sign to strike, at

once,

Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,

And forests seem, impatient, to demand
The promis'd sweetness. Man superior

walks

170

Amid the glad creation, musing praise,
And looking lively gratitude. At last,
The clouds consign their treasures to the fields;
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelufive drops, let all their moisture flow, 175
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 universal 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. 185

THUS all day long the full-distended clouds Indulge their genial stores, and well-shower'd earth

Is deep enrich'd with vegetable lifes