Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

And notion quite abftract; where first begins
The world of fpirits, action all, and life
Unfetter'd, and unmixt. But here the cloud,
So wills ETERNAL PROVIDENCE, fits deep.
Enough for us to know that this dark ftate,
In wayward paffions loft, and vain pursuits,
This Infancy of Being, cannot prove

1800

The final iffue of the works of God,

By boundless Love and perfect WISDOM form'd,

And ever rifing with the rifing mind.

1805

AUTUMN.

AUTUM N.

The

ARGUMENT.

The

The fubject propofed. Addrefs to Mr. ONSLOW. A prospect of the fields ready for harvest. Reflections in praise of industry raised by that view. Reaping. A tale relative to it. A harvest form. Shooting and hunting, 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. prodigious number of them that cover the northern and western isles of SCOTLAND. of the country. A prospect of the difcoloured, fading woods. After a gentle dusky day, moonlight. Autumnal meteors. Morning: to which fucceeds a calm, pure, fun-shiny day, fuch as ufually shuts up the feafon. The harvest being gathered in, the country diffolved in joy. The whole concludes with a panegyric on a philofophical country life.

Hence a view

AUTUM N.

CROWN'D with the fickle 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. Whate'er the Wintry froft Nitrous prepar'd; the various bloffom'd Spring Put in white promise forth; and Summer - funs Concocted ftrong, 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 Public Voice thy gentle ear
A while engage. Thy noble cares she knows,
The patriot-virtues that diftend thy thought,
Spread on thy front, and in thy bofom glow;
While listening fenates hang upon thy tongue,
Devolving thro' the maze of eloquence
A roll of periods, sweeter than her fong.
But she too pants for public virtue, she,

15

Tho'

Tho' weak of power, yet ftrong in ardent will,
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.

20

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 25
Of parting Summer, a ferener blue,

With golden light enlivened, wide invefts
The happy world. Attemper'd funs arife,
Sweet - beam'd, and shedding oft thro' lucid clouds
A pleafing calm; while broad, and brown, below
Extenfive harvests hang the heavy head.

30

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.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;

35

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

40

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

And all the foft civility of life:

Raifer of human kind! by Nature caft,
Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods.
And wilds, to rude inclement elements ;
With various feeds of art deep in the mind
G 4

45

50

Im

Implanted, and profufely pour'd around
Materials infinite; but idle all.

Still unexerted, in th' unconscious breaft,
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 beafts of prey; or for his acorn meal
Fought the fierce tusky boar; a shivering wretch!
Aghaft, and comfortlefs, when the bleak north,
With Winter charg'd, let the mix'd tempest fly,
Hail, rain, and fnow, and bitter - breathing frost:
Then to the shelter of the hut he fled;
And the wild feafon, fordid, pin'd away.
For home he had not; home is the resort
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 crowds; and thus his days
Roll'd heavy, dark, and unenjoy'd along:
A waste of time! till INDUSTRY approach'd,
And rous'd him from his miferable sloth:
His faculties unfolded, pointed out,
Where lavish Nature the directing hand
Of Art demanded; shew'd him how to raise
His feeble force by the mechanic powers,
To dig the mineral from the vaulted earth,
On what to turn the piercing rage of fire,
On what the torrent, and the gather'd blaft;
Gave the tall ancient foreft to his ax;

Taught him to chip the wood, and hew the ftone,
Till by degrees the finish'd fabric rofe;

Tore from his limbs the blood- polluted fur,

ба

65

And

[ocr errors][merged small]
« ZurückWeiter »