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Female Excellencies.

Outlives them all; and from his buried flock
Retiring, full of rumination sad,

Laments the weakness of these latter times.

But if the rougher sex by this fierce sport
Is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy
E'er stain the bosom of the British Fair. •
Far be the spirit of the chase from them!
Uncomely courage, unbeseeming skill;

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To spring the fence, to rein the prancing steed;
The cap, the whip, the masculine attire,
In which they roughen to the sense, and all
The winning softness of their sex is lost.

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In them 'tis graceful to dissolve at woe;
With every motion, every word, to wave

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Quick o'er the kindling cheek the ready blush;
And from the smallest violence to shrink
Unequal, then the loveliest in their fears;
And by this silent adulation, soft,

To their protection more engaging Man.

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O may their eyes no miserable sight,

Save weeping lovers, see! a nobler game,

Through Love's enchanting wiles pursued, yet fled,
In chase ambiguous. May their tender limbs

Float in the loose simplicity of dress!

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And, fashioned all to harmony, alone

Know they to seize the captivated soul,

In rapture warbled from love-breathing lips;

To teach the lute to languish; with smooth step,
Disclosing motion in its every charm,

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To swim along, and swell the mazy dance;

To train the foliage o'er the snowy lawn;

To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful page ;

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Well-ordered Home Man's best delight to make,
And by submissive wisdom, modest skill,

With every gentle care-eluding art,

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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! formed with every grace complete ;
Yet these neglecting, above beauty wise,
And far transcending such a vulgar praise.

Hence from the busy joy-resounding fields,

In cheerful error, let us tread the maze
Of Autumn unconfined; and taste, revived,
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

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Autumnal Fruits.

Lies in a soft profusion, scattered round.
A various sweetness swells the gentle race,
By Nature's all-refining hand prepared,
Of tempered sun, and water, earth, and air,

In ever-changing composition mixed.

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Such, falling frequent through the chiller night,

The fragrant stores, the wide-projected heaps

Of apples, which the lusty-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,
PHILIPS, Pomona's bard, the second thou
Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfettered verse,
With British freedom sing the British song :
How, from Silurian vats, high-sparkling wines
Foam in transparent floods; some strong, to cheer
The wintry revels of the labouring hind;
And tasteful

some, to cool the summer-hours.

In this glad season, while his sweetest beams
The sun sheds equal o'er the meekened day;
Oh lose me in the green delightful walks
Of DODDINGTON, thy seat, serene and plain;
Where simple Nature reigns; and every view,
Diffusive, spreads the pure Dorsetian downs,
In boundless prospect; yonder shagged with wood,
Here rich with harvest, and there white with flocks!
Mean time the grandeur of thy lofty dome,

Far splendid, seizes on the ravished eye.

New beauties rise with each revolving day;

New columns swell; and still the fresh spring finds

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Fertility of Warm Climates.

New plants to quicken, and new groves to green.
Full of thy genius all! the Muses' seat:
Where in the secret bower, and winding walk,
For virtuous YOUNG and thee they twine the bay.
Here, wandering oft, fired with the restless thirst
Of thy applause, I solitary court

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Th' inspiring breeze; and meditate the book
Of Nature ever open; aiming thence,
Warm from the heart, to learn the moral song.
Here, as I steal along the sunny wall,
Where Autumn basks, with fruit-empurpled deep,
My pleasing theme continual prompts my thought;
Presents the downy peach; the shining plumb;
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 south,
And scarcely wishes for a warmer sky.

Turn we a moment Fancy's rapid flight
To vigorous soils, and climes of fair extent;
Where, by the potent sun elated high,
The vineyard swells refulgent on the day;

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Spreads o'er the vale, or up the mountain climbs
Profuse, and drinks amid the sunny rocks,

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From cliff to cliff increased, the heightened blaze.

Low bend the weighty boughs. The clusters clear,
Half thro' the foliage seen, or ardent flame,

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Or shine transparent; while perfection breathes
White o'er the turgent film the living dew.
As thus they brighten with exalted juice,
Touched into flavour by the mingling ray;
The rural youth and virgins o'er the field,

Clouds and Exhalations.

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 refined,

Round the raised nations pours the cup of joy :
The claret smooth, red as the lip we press
In sparkling fancy, while we drain the bowl,
The mellow-tasted burgundy, and quick,
As is the wit it gives, the gay champaign.

Now by the cool declining year condensed,
Descend the copious exhalations, checked
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

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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 slow, to roll the misty wave.
Even in the height of noon opprest, the sun
Sheds weak, and blunt, his wide-refracted ray;
Whence glaring oft, with many a broadened orb,
He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth,
Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life
Objects appear; and, wildered, o'er the waste
The shepherd stalks gigantic. Till at last
Wreathed dun around, in deeper circles still
Successive closing, sits the general fog

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