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 thro' 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.
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
Of parting Summer, a serener blue,

With golden light enliven'd, wide invests

The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise,

Sweet beam'd, and shedding oft thro' lucid clouds
A pleasing calm; while broad and brown, below
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain :
A calm of plenty ! till the ruffled air

Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;

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

These are thy blessings, INDUSTRY! rough power! Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain;

Yet the kind source of every gentle art,

And all the soft civility of life;

Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast,
Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various seeds of art deep in the mind
Implanted, and profusely pour'd around
Materials infinite; but idle all.

Still unexerted, in th' unconscious breast,
Slept the lethargic powers; Corruption still,
Voracious, swallow'd what the liberal hand
Of bounty scatter'd o'er the savage year;
And still the sad barbarian, roving, mix'd
With beasts of prey; or for his acorn-meal,
Fought the fierce tusky boar; a shivering wretch!
Aghast, and comfortless, when the bleak north,
With winter charg'd, let the mix'd tempest fly
Hail, rain, and snow, and bitter-breathing frost:
Then to the shelter of the hut he fled;
And the wild season, sordid, pin'd away.
For home he had not; home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where
Supporting, and supported, polish'd friends,
And dear relations mingle into bliss.
But this the rugged savage never felt,
Even desolate in crouds; 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 miserable sloth:

Pour'd out her glittering stores: The canvas smooth
With glowing life protuberant, to the view
Embodied rose; the statue seem'd to breathe,
And soften into flesh, beneath the touch
Of forming art, imagination-flush'd.

All is the gift of INDUSTRY; whate'er
Exalts, embellishes, and renders dife
Delightful. Pensive Winter chear'd by him
Sits at the social fire, and happy hears
Th' excluded tempest idly rave along ;
His harden'd fingers deck the gaudy spring;
Without him Summer were an arid waste;
Nor to the autumnal months could thus transmit
Those full, mature, immeasurable stores,
That, waving round, recall my wand'ring song.
Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky',
And, unperceiv'd, unfolds the spreading day;
Before the ripened field the reapers stand,'
In fair array; each by the lass he loves,
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate
By nameless gentle offices her toil.

At once they stoop and swell the lusty sheaves;
While thro' their chearful band the rural talk,
The rural scandal, and the rural jest,

C

Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time,
And steal unfelt the sultry hours away.
Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks;
And, conscious, glancing oft on every side
His sated eye, feels his heart heave with joy.
The gleaners spread around, and here and there,
Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick.

What now,

Be not too narrow, husbandmen! but fling.
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth,
The liberal handful. Think, oh grateful think!
How good the GOD of HARVEST is to you;
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields;
While these unhappy partners of your kind
Wide-hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole. The various turns
Of fortune ponder; that your sons may want
with hard reluctance, faint, ye give.
The lovely young LAVÍNIA once had friends;
And fortune smil'd, deceitful, on her birth.
For, in her helpless years depriv'd of all,
Of every stay, save INNOCENCE and HEAVEN,
She with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor, liv'd in a cottage, far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale;
By solitude and deep-surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty conceal'd.
Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy passion and low-minded pride:
Almost on Nature's common bounty fed;
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose,
Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning-rose,
When the dew wets its leaves; unstain'd, and pie
As is the lily, or the mountain-snow.

The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,

Still on the ground dejected, darting all

Their humid beams into the blooming flowers:

Love, gratitude, and pity wept at once.
Confus'd, and frightened at his sudden tears,
Her rising beauties flush'd a higher bloom,
As thus PALEMON, passionate and just,

Pour'd out the pious rapture of his soul.

1

>> She whom my restless gratitude has sought,
» So long in vain? O heavens ! the very same
>> The softened image of my noble friend,
» Alive his every look, his every feature,
› More elegantly touch'd. Sweeter than Spring!)
» Thou sole surviving blossom from the root
› That nourish'd up my fortune! Say, ah where,
» In what sequester'd desart, hast thou drawn
» The kindest aspect of delighted HEAVEN ?

>> Into such beauty spread, and blown so fair;
Tho' poverty's cold wind, and crushing rain,
» Beat keen, and heavy, on thy tender years ?
» O let me now, into a richer soil,

Transplant thee safe! where vernal suns, and showers,

>> Diffuse their warmest, largest influence;

» And of my garden be the pride, and joy!

» Ill it befits thee, oh! it ill befits

AGASTO's daughter, his whose open stores

»> Tho' vast, were little to his ampler heart,

>>

The father of a country, thus to pick

» The

very refuse of those harvest-fields,

» Which from his bounteous friendship I enjoy."

1

» Then throw that shameful pittance from thy hand,

>> But ill apply'd to such a rugged task ;

» The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine,“