» If to the various blessings which thy house
> Has on me lavish'd, thou wilt add that bliss,
» That dearest bliss, the power of blessing thee ! »
Here ceas'd the youth: yet still his speaking eye
Express'd the sacred triumph of his soul,
With conscious virtue, gratitude, and love,
Above the vulgar joy divinely rais'd.
Nor waited he reply. Won by the charm
Of goodness irresistible, and all

In sweet disorder lost, she blush'd consent.
The news immediate to her mother brought,

While, pierc'd with anxious thought, she pin'd away
The lonely moments for LAVINIA's fate;
Amaz’d, and scarce believing what she heard,
Joy seiz❜d her wither'd veins, and one bright gleam
Of setting life shone on her evening-hours:
Not less enraptur'd than the happy pair ;
Who flourish'd long in tender bliss, and rear'd
A numerous offspring, lovely like themselves,5m
And good, the grace of all the country round.
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:
Strain'd to the root, the stooping forest pours
A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves.

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High-beat, the circling mountains eddy in,
From the bare wild, the dissipated storm,
And send it in a torrent down the vale.
Expos'd, and naked, to its utmost rage,
Thro' all the sea of harvest rolling round,
The billowy plain floats wide; nor can evade,
Tho' pliant to the blast, its seizing force;
Or whirl'd 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 spar'd,
In one wild moment ruin'd; the big hopes,
And well-earn'd 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 scatter'd round,
He sees; and instant o'er his shivering thought
Comes Winter unprovided, and a train
Of clamant children dear. Ye masters, then,
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.

Here the rude clamour of the sportsman's joy,
The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn,
Would tempt the Muse to sing the rural Game:
How, in his mid-career, the spaniel struck,
Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose,
Outstretch'd, and finely sensible, draws full,
Fearful, and cautious, on the latent prey;
As in the sun the circling covey bask

Their varied plumes, and watchful every way,
Thro' the rough stubble turn the secret eye.
Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat
Their idle wings, intangled more and more :
Nor on the surges of the boundless air,

Tho' borne triumphant, are they safe; the gun,
Glanc'd just, and sudden, from the fowler's eye
O'ertakes their sounding pinions; and again,
Immediate, brings them from the towering wing,
Dead to the ground; or drives them wide-dispers'd,'
Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind.

These are not subjects for the peaceful Muse,
Nor will she stain with such her spotless song;
Then most delighted, when she social sees
The whole mix'd animal-creation round
Alive, and happy. "Tis not joy to her,

This falsely-chearful barbarous game of death;
This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth
Awakes, impatient, with the gleaming morn;
When beasts of prey retire, that all night long,
Urg'd by necessity, had rang'd the dark,
As if their conscious ravage shun'd the light,
Asham'd. Not so the steady tyrant Man,
Who with the thoughtless insolence of power
Inflam'd, beyond the most-infuriate wrath
Of the worst monster that e'er roam'd the waste,

For sport alone pursues the cruel chace,

Amid the beamings of the gentle days.
Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage,
For hunger kindles you, and lawless want;
But lavish fed, in Nature's bounty roll'd,
To joy at anguish, and delight in blood,
Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.
Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare !
Scar'd from the corn, and now to some lone seat
Retir'd: the rushy fen; the ragged furze,
Stretch'd o'er the stony heath; the stubble chapt;
The thistly lawn; the thick entangled broom;
Of the same friendly hue, the wither'd fern ;
The fallow ground laid open to the sun,
Concoctive; and the nodding sandy bank,
Hung o'er the mazes of the mountain brook.
Vain is her best precaution; tho' she sits
Conceal'd, with folded ears; unsleeping eyes,
By Nature rais'd to take the horizon in;
And head couch'd close betwixt her hairy feet,
In act to spring away. The scented dew

Betrays her early labyrinth; and deep,
In scattered sullen openings, far behind,
With every breeze she hears the coming storm.
But nearer, and more frequent, as it loads
The sighing gale, she springs amaz'd, and all
The savage soul of game is up at once :
The pack full-opening, various; the shrill horn
Resounded from the hills; the neighing steed,
Wild for the chace; and the loud hunter's shout;
O'er a weak, harmless, flying creature, all
Mix'd in mad tumult, and discordant joy.

The stag too, singled from the herd, where long
He rang'd the branching monarch of the shades,
Before the tempest drives. At first, in speed
He, sprightly, puts his faith; and, rous'd by fear,
Gives all his swift aerial soul to flight;

Against the breeze he darts, that way the more
To leave the lessening murderous cry behind;
Deception short! tho' fleeter than the winds
Blown o'er the keen-air'd mountain by the north,
He bursts the thickets, glances thro' the glades,
And plunges deep into the wildest wood;
If slow, yet sure, adhesive to the track
Hot-steaming, up behind him come again
Th' inhuman rout, and from the shady depth
Expel him, circling thro' his every shift.
He sweeps the forest oft and sobbing sees
The glades, mild opening to the golden day;
Where, in kind contest, with his butting friends
He went to struggle, or his loves enjoy.
Oft in the full-descending flood he tries