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Tenacious of its theme. Still, still she thinks She sees him, and indulging the fond thought, Clings yet more closely to the senseless turf, Nor heeds the passenger who looks that way.

JAMES THOMSON (1700-1748)

A SNOW SCENE

FROM WINTER

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The keener tempests come: and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend in whose capacious womb A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congealed. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along; And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends,

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At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
Put on their winter-robe of purest white.
'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low, the woods
Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide 239
The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The redbreast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first
Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,
And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is -
Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks, 260
Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the black heaven, and next the glistening earth
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.

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THE SHEEP-WASHING

FROM SUMMER

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Or rushing thence, in one diffusive band They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog Compelled, to where the mazy-running brook Forms a deep pool; this bank abrupt and high, And that, fair-spreading in a pebbled shore. Urged to the giddy brink, much is the toil, The clamour much, of men, and boys, and dogs, Ere the soft, fearful people to the flood Commit their woolly sides. And oft the swain, On some impatient seizing, hurls them in: Emboldened then, nor, hesitating more, Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing wave, And panting labour to the farther shore. Repeated this, till deep the well-washed fleece Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt The trout is banished by the sordid stream, Heavy and dripping, to the breezy brow Slow move the harmless race; where, as they spread Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray, Inly disturbed, and wondering what this wild 390 Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints The country fill — and, tossed from rock to rock, Incessant bleatings run around the hills. At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed, Head above head; and ranged in lusty rows The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears. The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores, With all her gay-drest maids attending round. One, chief, in gracious dignity enthroned, Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays Her smiles, sweet-beaming, on her shepherd-king; While the glad circle round them yield their souls To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall. Meantime, their joyous task goes on apace: Some mingling stir the melted tar, and some, Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side, To stamp his master's cypher ready stand; Others the unwilling wether drag along; And, glorying in his might, the sturdy boy Holds by the twisted horns the indignant ram. Behold where bound, and of its robe bereft, By needy man, that all-depending lord, How meek, how patient, the mild creature lies! What softness in its melancholy face, What dumb complaining innocence appears! Fear not, ye gentle tribes, 'tis not the knife Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you waved; No, 'tis the tender swain's well-guided shears, Who having now, to pay his annual care, Borrowed your fleece, to you a cumbrous load, Will send you bounding to your hills again.

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The wish of Nature. Gradual sinks the breeze
Into a perfect calm; that not a breath
Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves
Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffused
In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all,
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye
The fallen verdure. Hushed in short suspense
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;
And wait the approaching sign to strike, at once,
Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,
And forests seem, impatient, to demand
The promised sweetness. Man superior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise,
And looking lively gratitude. At last,

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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.

STORM IN HARVEST

FROM AUTUMN

Defeating oft the labours of the year, The sultry south collects a potent blast. At first, the groves are scarcely seen to stir Their trembling tops, and a still murmur runs Along the soft-inclining fields of corn; But as the aërial tempest fuller swells, And in one mighty stream, invisible, Immense, the whole excited atmosphere Impetuous rushes o'er the sounding world, Strained to the root, the stooping forest pours 320 A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves. High-beat, the circling mountains eddy in, From the bare wild, the dissipated storm, And send it in a torrent down the vale. Exposed, and naked, to its utmost rage, Through all the sea of harvest rolling round, The billowy plain floats wide; nor can evade,

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Though pliant to the blast, its seizing force -
Or whirled in air, or into vacant chaff
Shook waste. And sometimes too a burst of rain,
Swept from the black horizon, broad, descends
In one continuous flood. Still over head
The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and still
The deluge deepens; till the fields around
Lie sunk, and flatted, in the sordid wave.
Sudden, the ditches swell; the meadows swim.
Red, from the hills, innumerable streams
Tumultuous roar; and high above its banks
The river lift; before whose rushing tide,
Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and swains,
Roll mingled down: all that the winds had spared,
In one wild moment ruined; the big hopes,
And well-earned treasures of the painful year.
Fled to some eminence, the husbandman,
Helpless, beholds the miserable wreck
Driving along; his drowning ox at once
Descending, with his labours scattered round,
He sees; and instant o'er his shivering thought
Cornes Winter unprovided, and a train

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Of clamant children dear. Ye masters, then, 350
Be mindful of the rough laborious hand
That sinks you soft in elegance and ease;
Be mindful of those limbs, in russet clad,
Whose toil to yours is warmth and graceful pride;
And, oh, be mindful of that sparing board
Which covers yours with luxury profuse,

Makes your glass sparkle, and your sense rejoice!
Nor cruelly demand what the deep rains
And all-involving winds have swept away.

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THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE

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That, as they bickered through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.

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Joined to the prattle of the purling rills,
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale:*
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep:
Yet all the sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.

Full in the passage of the vale, above,
A sable, silent, solemn forest stood;
Where nought but shadowy forms were seen to
move,

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As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood: And up the hills, on either side, a wood Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro, Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood; And where this valley winded out below, The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.

A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was:

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer-sky. There eke the soft delights, that witchingly 50 Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures, always hovered nigh; But whate'er smackt of noyance, or unrest, Was far, far off expelled from this delicious

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While o'er the enfeebling lute his hand he flung, And to the trembling chords these tempting verses sung:

"Behold! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold! See all but man with unearned pleasure gay: See her bright robes the butterfly unfold, Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May! What youthful bride can equal her array? Who can with her for easy pleasure vie? From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray, From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, 80 Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.

"Behold the merry minstrels of the morn, The swarming songsters of the careless grove; Ten thousand throats that, from the flowering thorn,

Hymn their good God, and carol sweet of love, Such grateful kindly raptures them emove! They neither plough, nor sow; ne, fit for flail, E'er to the barn the nodding sheaves they drove; Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale, 89 Whatever crowns the hill, or smiles along the vale.

"Outcast of Nature, man! the wretched thrall Of bitter-dropping sweat, of sweltry pain, Of cares that eat away the heart with gall, And of the vices, an inhuman train, That all proceed from savage thirst of gain: For when hard-hearted Interest first began To poison earth, Astræa left the plain; Guile, Violence, and Murder, seized on man, And, for soft milky streams, with blood the rivers

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Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame; All their attempts to bend thee down Will but arouse thy generous flame,

But work their woe and thy renown. Rule, Britannia, etc.

To thee belongs the rural reign;

Thy cities shall with commerce shine; All thine shall be the subject main, And every shore it circles thine. Rule, Britannia, etc.

The Muses, still with freedom found,

Shall to thy happy coast repair;

And manly hearts to guard the fair!

Rule, Britannia, etc.

JOHN DYER

Blest isle, with matchless beauty crowned,

JOHN DYER (1700?-1758)

FROM GRONGAR HILL

Silent Nymph, with curious eye,
Who, the purple evening, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man,
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings;
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale;
Come with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy sister Muse;
Now while Phoebus riding high
Gives lustre to the land and sky!
Grongar Hill invites my song,

Draw the landskip bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells
Sweetly musing Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,

For the modest Muses made,

So oft I have, the evening still,

At the fountain of a rill,

Sate upon a flowery bed,

With my hand beneath my head;

While strayed my eyes o'er Towy's flood, Over mead, and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill, "Till Contemplation had her fill.

About his chequered sides I wind, And leave his brooks and meads behind, And groves, and grottoes where I lay, And vistas shooting beams of day: Wide and wider spreads the vale; As circles on a smooth canal: The mountains round, unhappy fate!

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ΙΟ

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Sooner or later, of all height,

Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise:
Still the prospect wider spreads,

Adds a thousand woods and meads,
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly-risen hill.

Now, I gain the mountain's brow,
What a landskip lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene,
But the gay, the open scene
Does the face of nature show,
In all the hues of heaven's bow!
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.

Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly towering in the skies;
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires;
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads,
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks.

Below me trees unnumbered rise,
Beautiful in various dyes:

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The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beach, the sable yew,
The slender fir, that taper grows,
The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs;
And beyond the purple grove,

Haunt of Phillis, queen of love,

Gaudy as the opening dawn,

Lies a long and level lawn

On which a dark hill, steep and high, Holds and charms the wandering eye.

Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,

His sides are cloth'd with waving wood, And ancient towers crown his brow, That cast an aweful look below;

Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps;
So both a safety from the wind
On mutual dependence £nd.

THE FLEECE

FROM BOOK I

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70'

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Ah, gentle shepherd, thine the lot to tend, Of all, that feel distress, the most assail'd, Feeble, defenceless: lenient be thy care: But spread around thy tenderest diligence In flow'ry spring-time, when the new-dropt lamb, Tottering with weakness by his mother's side, Feels the fresh world about him; and each thorn, Hillock, or furrow, trips his feeble feet:

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