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AUTUM N.

Vol. I.

The ARGUMENT.

The fubject propofed. Addreffed to Mr. ONS LOW. A. profpect of the fields ready for harvest. Reflexions in praife of industry rais'd by that view. Reaping. A tale relative to it. A harvest form. Shooting and bunting, their barbarity. A view of an orchard. Wall-fruit. A vineyard. A defcription of fogs, frequent in the latter part of Autumn: whence a digreffion, enquiring into the rife of fountains and rivers. Birds of feafon confidered, that now shift their habitation. The prodigious number of them that over the northern and western ifles of SCOTLAND. Hence a view of the country. A prospect of the difcoloured, fading woods. After a gentle dufky day, moonlight. Autumnal meteors. Morning: to which fucceeds a calm, pure, fun-fhiny day, fuch as ufually fouts up the feafon. The harvest being gathered in, the country diffolv'd in joy. The whole concludes with a panegyric on a philofophical country life.

AUTUM N.

ROWN'D with the fickle, and the wheaten fheaf, 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 froft Nitrous prepar'd; the various bloffom'd spring Put in white promise forth; and fummer-funs Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view, Full, perfect all, and fwell my glorious theme.

ONSLOW! the Mufe, ambitious of thy name, To grace, infpire, and dignify her fong, Would from the Publick Voice thy gentle ear A while engage. Thy noble cares fhe knows, The patriot-virtues that diftend thy thought, Spread on thy front, and in thy bofom glow; While liftening fenates hang upon thy tongue, Devolving thro' the maze of eloquence A rowl of periods, fweeter than her song. But she too pants for public virtue, fhe, Tho' weak of power yet ftrong in ardent will,

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Whene'er

Whene'er her country rushes on her heart,
Affumes a bolder note, and fondly tries
To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame.

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WHEN the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days, And Libra weighs in equal fcales the year; From heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence shook Of parting Summer, a ferener blue, With golden light enlivened wide invests

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The happy world. Attemper'd funs arife,
Sweet-beam'd, and fhedding oft thro' lucid clouds
A pleafing calm; while broad, and brown, below 30
Extenfive harvefts hang the heavy head.

Rich, filent, deep, they ftand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:
A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air

Falls from its poife, and gives the breeze to blow. 35
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;

The clouds fly different; and the fudden fun
By fits effulgent gilds th' illumin'd field,
And black by fits the fhadows fweep along.
A gayly-checker'd heart-expanding view,
Far as the circling eye can fhoot around,
Unbounded toffing in a flood of corn.

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THESE are thy bleffings, INDUSTRY! rough power! Whom labour fill attends, and fweat, and pain; Yet the kind fource of every gentle art,

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And

And all the foft civility of life:

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Raiser of human kind! by Nature caft,
Naked, and helplefs, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various feeds of art deep in the mind
Implanted, and profufely pour'd around
Materials infinite; but idle all.
Still unexerted, in th' unconscious breast,
Slept the lethargic powers; corruption ftill,
Voracious, fwallowed what the liberal hand
Of bounty fcatter'd o'er the favage year:
And still the fad barbarian, roving, mix'd
With beasts of prey; or for his acorn-meal
Fought the fierce tufky boar; a fhivering wretch!
Aghaft, and comfortless, when the bleak north, 60
With Winter charg'd, let the mix'd tempeft fly,
Hail, rain, and fnow, and bitter-breathing froft:
Then to the fhelter of the hut he fled;
And the wild feafon, fordid, pin'd away.

For home he had not; home is the resort

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Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,

Supporting and fupported, polish'd friends,

And dear relations mingle into blifs.

But this the rugged favage never felt,
Even defolate in crouds; and thus his days
Roll'd heavy, dark, and unenjoy'd along:
A wafte of time! till INDUSTRY approach'd,
And rous'd him from his miferable sloth:

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His

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