Unfetter'd and unmix'd. But here the cloud,
So wills eternal Providence, sits deep:
Enough for us to know that this dark state,
In wayward passions lost and vain pursuits,
This infancy of being, cannot prove
The final issue of the works of God,

By boundless love and perfect wisdom form'd
And ever rising with the rising mind.

1800

M 2

AUTUMN.

THE ARGUMENT.

The subject proposed. Addressed to Mr. Onslow. A prospect of the fields ready for harvest. Reflections in praise of industry, rais'd 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. Wall-fruit. A vineyard. A description of fogs frequent in the latter part of Autumn; whence a digression, inquiring 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 Isles 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, sun-shiny 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.

AUTUMN.

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. What'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 Public 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 through 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.

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20

When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days,

And Libra weighs in equal scales the year,

From heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence shook 25
Of parting Summer, a serener blue,

With golden light enliven'd, wide invests
The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise,