cepts relative to changes of weather and seasons. Wav'd as the billows of a rolling sea :
Particular care of new-fallen lambs. The ad- And Shobden 4, for its lofty terrace fam’d,
vantages and security of the English shepherd | Which from a mountain's ridge, elate o'er woods
above those in hotter or colder climates; exem- And girt with all Siluria, sees around
plified with respect to Lapland, Italy, Greece, Regions on regions blended in the clouds.
and Arabia. Of sheep-shearing. Song on that Pleasant Siluria, land of various views,
occasion. Custom in Wales of sprinkling the Hills, rivers, woods, and lawns, and purple groves
rivers with flowers. Sheep-shearing feast and Pomaceous, mingled with the curling growth
merriments on the banks of the Serern.

Oftendril hops, that flaunt upon their poles,
More airy wild than vines along the sides

Of treacherous Falernum 6; or that hill
The care of sheep, the labours of the loom,

Vesuvius, where the bowers of Bacchus rose, And arts of trade, I sing. Ye rural nymphs,

And Herculanean and Pompeian domes. Ye swains, and princely merchants, aid the verse.

But if thy prudent care would cultivate And ye, high-trusted guardians of our isle,

Leicestrian Heeces, what the sinewy arm Whom public voice approves, or lot of birth

Combs through the spiky steel in lengthen'd Aakes; To the great charge assigns : ye good, of all

Rich saponaceous loam, that slowly drinks Degrees, ali sects, be present to my song.

The blaekening shower, and fattens with the So may distres, and wretchedness, and want,

draught, The wide felicities of labour learnı :

Or marle witb clay deep-mix'd be then thy choice, So may the proud attempts of restless Gaul

Of one consistence, one complexion, spread From our strong borders, like a broken wave,

Through all thy glebe; where no deceitful veins In empty foam retire. But chiefly thou,

Of envious gravel lurk bencath the turf, The people's shepherd, eminently plac'd

To loose ihe creeping waters from their springs, Over the numerous su ains of every vale,

Tainting the pasturage: and let thy elds With well-permitted power, and watchful eye,

In slopes descend and mount, that chilling rains On each gay field to shed beneficence,

May trickle off, and hasten to the brooks. Celestial office! thou protect the song.

Yet some defect in all on Earth appears ; On spacious airy downs, and gentle bills,

Ull seek for help, all press for social aid. With grass

and thyme o'erspread, and clover wild, Too cold the grassy mantle of the marle, Where smiling Phæbus tempers every breeze, In stormy winter's long and dreary nights, The fairest flocks rejoice. They, nor of halt,

For enmbent sheep ; from broken slumber oft Hydropic tumours, nor of rot, complain;

They rise benumb'd, and vainly sbift the couch ; Evils deform'd and foul: nor with hoarse congh

Their wasted sides their evil plight declare. Disturb the music of the pastoral pipe;

Hence, tender in his care, the shepherd suain But, crowding to the note, with silence soft

Seeks cach contrivance. Here it would avail, The close-woven carpet graze; where Nature blends

At a meet distance from the upland ridge, Flowrets and herbage of minutest size,

To siuk a trench, and on the hedge-long bank Innoxious luxury. Wide airy downs

Sow frequent sand, with lime, and dark manure; Are Health's gay walks to shepherd and to sheep.

Which to the liquid element will yield
All arid soils, with sand, or chalky flint,
Or shells dilurjan mingled; and the turf,

A porous way, a passage to the foe.

Plough not such pastures: deep in spungy grass That mantles over rocks of brittle stone,

The oldest carpet is the warmest lair, Be thy regard : and where low-tufted broom,

And soundest; in new herbage coughs are heard. Or box, or berry'd juniper arise ;

Nor love too frequent shelter : such as decks Or the tall growth of glossy-rinded beech;

The vale of Severn, Nature's garden wide, And where the burrowing rabbit turns the dust;

By the blue steeps of distant Malvern? wall'd And where the dappled deer delights to bound.

Solemnly vast. The trees of various shade, Such are the downs of Banstead, edg'd with

Scene behind scene, with fair delusive pomp woods,

Enrich the prospect, but they rob the lawps. And towery villas; such Dorcestrian fields,

Nor prickly bramble, white with woolly theft, Whose flocks innumerous whiten all the land :

Should tuf thy fiel is. Applaud not the remiss Such those slow-climbing wilds, that lead the step Dimetians, who, along their mossy dales, Insensibly to Dover's windy cliff,

Consume, like grasshoppers, the summer hour; Tremendous height' and such the clover'd lawns

While round them stubborn thorns and furze inAnd sunny mounts of beauteous Normanton',

crease, Health's cheerful haunt, and the selected walk

And creeping briars. I knew a careful swain, Of Heathcote's leisure : such the spacious plain

Who gave them to the crackling flames, and spread Of Sarum, spread like Ocean's boundless round, Where solitary Stonehenge, gray with moss, Ruin of ages, nods : such too the leas

+ A seat of lord Bateman. And ruddy tilth, which spiry Ross beholds,

5 Siluria, the part of England which lies west From a green hillock, o'er her lofty elms;

of tbe Severn, viz. Herefordshire, MonmouthAnd Lemster's brooky tract, and airy Croft ?; shire, &c. And such Harleian Eywood's 3 swelling turf,

6 Treacherous Falernum, because part of the hills of Falernum was many years ago overturned

by an eruption of fire, and is now a high and " A seat of sir John Heathcote iu Rutlandshire.barren mount of cinders, called Monte Novo. ? A seat of sir Archer Croft.

7 Malvern, a high ridge of hills near Worcester. 3 A seat of the earl of Oxford.

8 Dimetia, Caermarthenshire in South Wales.

Their dust saline upon the deepening grass : From deck to deck, through grores immense of And oft with labour-strengthen'd arm he delv'd

masts; The draining trench across his verdant slopes, 'Mong crowds, bales, cars, the wealth of either Ind; To intercept the small meandring rills

Through wharfs, and squares, and palaces, and Of upper hamlets: haughty trees, that sour

domes, The shaded grass, that weaken thorn-set mounds, In sweet surprise; unable yet to fix And harbour villain crows, he rare allow'd : His raptur'd mind, or scan in order'd course Only a slender tuft of useful ash,

Each object singly; with discoveries new And mingled beech and elm, securely tall, His native country studious to enrich. The little smiling cottage warm embower'd;

Ye shepherds, if your labours hope success, The little siniling cottage, where at eve

Be first your purpose to procure a breed He meets his rosy children at the door,

To soil and clime adapted. Every soil Prattling their welcomes, and his honest wife, And clime, e'en every tree and herb, receives With good brown cake and bacon slice, intent Its habitant peculiar: each to each, To cheer bis hunger after labour hard.

The Great Invisible, and each to all, Nor only soil, there also must be found

Through earth, and sea, and air, harmonious suits. Felicity of clime, and aspect bland,

Tempestuous regions, Darwent's 9 naked peaks, Where gentle sheep may nourish locks of price. Snowdon 10 and blue Plynlymmon, and the wide In vain the silken fleece on windy brow's

Aërial sides of Cader-yddris o huge; And northern slopes of cloud-dividing hills These are bestow'd on goat horn'd sheep, of fleece Is sought, though soft Toeria spreads her lap Hairy and coarse, of long and nimble shank, Beneath their rugged feet, and names their heights Who rove o'er bog or heath, and graze or browse Biscaian or Segovian. Bothnic realms,

Alternate, to collect, with due dispatch, And dark Norwegian, with their choicest fields, O'er the bleak wild, the thinly-scatter'd meal. Dingles, and dells, by lofty fir embower'd, But bills of milder air, that gently rise In vain the bleaters court. Alike they shun O’er dewy dales, a fairer species boast, Libya's hot plains: what taste have they for groves Of shorter limb, and frontlet more ornate ; Of palm, or yellow dust of gold ? no more Such the Silurian. If thy farm extends Food to the flock, than to the miser wealth, Near Cotswold downs, or the delicious grores Who kneels upon the glitiering heap, and starves. Of Symmonds, honour'd through the sandy soil E'en Gallic Abbeville the shining fleece,

Of elmy Russ !', or Deron's myrtle vales, That richly decorates her loom, acquires

That drink clear rivers near the glassy sea; Basely from Albion, by th' ensnaring bribe, Regard this sort, and hence thy sire of launbs The bait of avarice, which, with felon fraud, Select: his tawny fleece in ringlets curls; For its own wanton mouth, from thousands steals. Long swings his slender tail; his front is fenc'd

How erring oft the judgment in its hate, With horns Ammonian, circulating twice Or fond desire ! Those slow-descending showers, Around each open ear, like those fair scrolls Those hovering fogs, that bat he our growing tales That grace the colunins of th’lonic dome. In deep November (loath'd by tritling Gaul,

Yet should thy fertile glebe be marly clay, Effeminate), are gifts tbc Pleiads shed,

Like Melton pastures, or Tripontian fields"?, Britannia's handmaids. As the beverage falls, Where ever-gliding Avon's limpid wave Her hills rejoice, her valleys laugh and sing. Thwarts the long course of dusty Watling-street :

Hail, noble Albion; where no golden mines, That larger sort, of head defenceless, serk, No soft perfumes, nor oils, nor myrtle bowers, Whose fleece is deep and clammy, close and plain: The vigorous frame and lofty heart of man The ram short-limb'd, whose forın compact de Enervate: round whose stern cerulean brow's

scribes White-winged snow, and cloud, and pearly rain, One level line along his spacious back; Frequent attend, with solemn majesty :

Of full and ruddy eye, large ears, stretch'd head, Rich queen of Mists and Vapours! These thy sons Nostrils dilated, breast and shoulders broad, With their cool arms compress; and twist their And spacious haunches, and a lofty dock.

Thus to their kindred snil and air induc'd, For deeds of excellence and high renown.

Thy thriving herd will bless thy skilful care, Thus form’d, our Edwards, Henrys, Churchills, That copies Nature: who, in every change, Blakes,

In each variety, with wisdom works, Our Lockes, our Newtons, and our Miltons, rose, And powers diversify'd of air and soil,

See the Sun gleams; the living pastures rise, Her rich materials. Hence Sabæa's rocks, After the nurture of the fallen shower,

Chaldæa's marle, Egyptus' water'd loam, How beantiful! how blue th' ethereal vault, And dry Cyrene's sand, in climes alike, How verdurous the lawns, how clear the brooks! With different stores supply the marts of trade, Such noble warlike steeds, such herds of kine, Hence Zembla's icy tracts no bleaters hear; So sleek, so vast; such spacious flocks of sheep, Small are the Russian herds, and harsh their fleece; Like fakes of gold illumining the green, What otber Paradise adorn but thine,

9 Darwent's naked peaks, the peaks of DerbyBritannia ? happy, if thy sons would know

shire. 'Their happiness. To these thy naval st (ams, 10 Snowdon, Plynlymmon, and Cader-yddris, Thy freqnent towns superb of busy trade,

are high hills in North Wales. And ports magnific add, and stately ships,

11 A town in Herefordshire. Innumerous. But whither strays my Muse ?

" Tripontian fields, the country between Rug. Pleas'd, like a traveller upon the strand

by in Warwickshire and Lutterworth in LeicesterArriv'd of bright Augusta: wild he roves,

shire.

nerves

Of light esteem Gerinanic, far remote

Informs them. O’er the vivid green observe From soft sea-breezes, open winters mild,

With what a regular consent they crop, And summers bath'd in dew: on Syrian sheep At every fourth collection to the month. The costly burthen only loads their tails:

Unsavory cruw-flower; whether to awake No locks Cormandel's, none Malacca's tribe Languor of appetite with lively change, Adorn; but sleek of fix, and brown like deer, Or timely to repel approaching ills, Fearful and shepherdless, they bound along Hard to determine, Thou, whom Nature loves, The sands. No fleeces waye in torrid climes, And with her salutary rules intrusts, Which verdure boast of trees and shrubs alone, Benevolent Mackenzie '3, say the cause. Shrubs aromatic, caufee wild, or thea,

This truth howe'er shines bright to huma sense; Nutmeg, or cinnamon, or fiery clove,

Each strong affection of th’unconscious brute, l'napt to feed the fleece. The food of wool Each bent, each passion of the smallest mite, Is grass or berbage soft, that ever blooms

Is wisely given; harmonious they perform In teinperate air, in the delicious downs

The work of perfect reason, (blush, vain man') Of Albion, on the banks of all her streams.

And turn the wheels of Nature's rast machine, Of grasses are unnumber'd kinds, and all

See that thy scrip have store of healing tar, (Save where foul waters lipger on the turf) And marking pitch and ralle; nor forget. Salubrious. Early mark, when tepid gleams Thy sheers true pointed, nor th' officious dog, Oft mingle with the pearls of summer showers, Faithfuil to teach thy stragglers to return : And swell too bastily the tender plains :

So mayst thou aid who lag along, or steal
Then snatch away thy sheep : beware the rot; Aside into the furrows or the shades,
And with detersive bay-salt rub their mouths; Silent to drvop; or wbo, at every gate,
Or urge them on a barren bank to feed,

Or hillock, rub their sores and loosen'd wool. In hunger's kind distress, on tedded hay;

But rather these, the feeble of thy flock, Or to the marish guide their easy steps,

Banish before th' autumnal months : e'en age
If near thy tufted crofts the broad sea sprcads. Forbear too much to favour; oft renew,
Sagacious care foreacts: when strong disease And through thy fold let joyous youth appear.
Breaks in, and stains the purple streams of health, Beware the season of imperial Love,
Hard is the strife of art: the coughing pest Who through the world his ardent spirit pours;
From their green pasture sweeps whole flocks away. E'en sheep are then intrepid : the proud ram

That dire distemper sometiines may the swain, With jealous eye surveys the spacious field:
Though late, discern; when on the lifted lid, All rivals keep aloof, or desperate war
Or visual orb, the turgid veins are pale;

Suddenly rages; with impetuous force,
The swelling liver then her putrid store

And fury irresistible, they dash Begins to drink : e'en yet thy skill exert,

Their hardy frontlets; the wide vale resounds; Nor suffer weak despair to fold thy arms :

The flock amaz'd stands safe afar; apd oft Again detersive salt apply, or shed

Each to the other's might a victim falls :
The hoary med cine o'er their arid food.

As fell of old, before that engine's sway,
In cold stiff soils the bleaters of complain Which hence Ambition imitatire wrought,
Of gonity ails, by shepherds term'd the balt: The beauteous towers of Salem to the dust,
Those let the neighbouring fold or ready crook Wise custom, at the fifth or sixth return,
Detain; and pour into their cloven feet

Or ere they 'ave past the twelfth of orient morn, Corrosire drugs, deep-searching arsenic,

Castrates the lambkins ; necessary rite, Dry alum, verdigrise, or vitriol keen.

Ere they be number'd of the peaceful herd. But if the doubtful mischief scarce appears, But kindly watch whom thy sharp band has grievid, 'T will serve to shift them to a drier turf,

In those rough months, that lift the turning year: And salt again: th’ utility of salt

Not tedious is the office; to thy aid Teach thy slow swains : redundant humours cold Favonius hastens; soon their wounds he heals, Are the diseases of the bleating kind.

And leads them skipping to the flowers of May; Th’ infectious scab, arising from extremes May, who allows to fold, if poor the tilth, Of want or surfeit, is by water cor'd

Like that of dreary, houseless, common fields, Of lime, or sodden stave-acre, or oil

Worn by the plough: but fuld on tallows dry. Dispersive of Norwegian tar, renown'd

Enfeeble not thy flock to feed thy land : By virtuous Berkeley, whose benevolence

Nor in too narrow bounds the prisoners crowd: Explor'd its powers, and easy medicine thence Nor ope the wattled fence, while balıny Mora Sought for the poor: ye poor, with grateful voice, Lies on the reeking pasture; wait till all Invoke eternal blessings on his head.

The crystal dews, impearld upon the grass, Sheep also pleurisies and dropsies know, Are touch'd by Phæbus' beams, and mount alift, Driv'n oft from Nature's path by artful man, With various clouds to paint the azure sky. Who blindly turns aside, with haughty hand,

In teasing fly-time, dank, or frosty days,
Whom sacred Instinct would securely lead. With unctuous liqnids, or the lees of oil,
But thou, more humble swain, thy rural gates Rub their soft skins, between the parted locks;
Frequent unbar, and let thy flocks abroad, Thus the Brigantes '4; 't is not idle pains:
From lea to croft, from mead to arid field; Nor is that skill despis'd, which trims their tails,
Noting the fickle seasons of the sky.

Ere summer heats, of filth and tagged wool.
Fain-sated pastures let them shun, and seek Coolness and cleanliness to health conduce,
Changes of herbage and salubrious flowers,
By their All-perfect Master inly taught,

13 Dr. Mackenzie, late of Worcester, now of They best their food and physic can discern; Drumsugh, near Edinburgh. For he, Supreme Existence, ever near,

14 The inhabitants of Yorkshire.

To mend thy mounds, to trench, to clear, to soil | Through slow experience, by a patient breast,
Thy grateful fields, to medicate thy sheep, The whole long lesson gradual is attain'd,
Hurdles to weave, and cheerly shelters raise, By precept after precept, oft receiv'd
Thy vacant hours require: and ever learn

With deep attention : such as Nuceus 15 sings
Quick ether's motion : oft the scene is turn'd; To the full vale near Soare's 16 enamour'd brook,
Now the blue vault, and now the murky cloud, While all is silence: sweet Hincklean swain!
Hail, rain, or radiance; these the Moon will tell, Whom rude Obscurity severely clasps :
Each bird and beast, and these thy fleecy tribe: The Muse, howe'er, will deck thy simple cell
When high the sapphire cope, supine they couch, With purple violets and primrose flowers,
And chew the cud delighted; but, ere rain, Well-pleas'd thy faithful lessons to repay.
Eager, and at unwonted hour, they feed :

Sheep no extremes can bear: both heat and cold
Slight not the warning ; soon the tempest rolls, Spread sores cutaneous; but, more frequent, heat;
Scattering them wide, close rushing at the heels The fly-blown vermin, from their woolly nest,
Of th' hurrying o'ertaken swains : forbear

Press to the tortur'd skin, and flesh, and bone,
Such nights to fold ; such nights be theirs to shifts in littleness and number dreadful foes.
On ridge or hillock; or in homesteads soft, Long rains in miry winter canse the halt;
Or sufter cotes, detain them. Is thy lot

Rainy luxuriant summers rot your flock;
A chill penurious turf, to all thy toils

And all excess, e'en of salubrious food,
Untractable? Before harsh Winter drowns

As sure destroys, as famine or the wolf.
The noisy dykes, and starves the rushy glebe, Inferior theirs to man's world-roring frame,
Shift the frail breed to sandy hamlets warm : Which all extremes in every zone endures.
There let them sojourn, till gay Procne skims With grateful heart, ye British swains, enjoy
The thickening verdure, and the rising flowers. Your gentle seasons and indulgent clime.
And while departing Autumn all embrowns Lo, in the sprinkling clouds, your bleating hills
The frequent-bitten fields; while thy free hand Rejoice with herbage, while the horrid rage
Divides the tedded bay; then be their feet

Of Winter irresistible o'erw belms
Accustom'd to the barriers of the rick,

Th' Hyperborean tracts: his arrowy frosts,
Or some warm umbrage ; lest, in erring fright, That pierce through flinty rocks, the Lappian flies;
When the broad dazzling snows descend, they run And burrows deep beneath the snowy world;
Dispers'd to ditches, where the swelling drift A drear abode, from rose-diffusiog hours,
Wide overwhelms : anxious, the shepherd swains That dance before the wheels of radiant day,
Issue with axe and spade, and, all abroad, Far, far remote; where, by the squalid light
In doubtful aim explore the glaring waste;

Of fætid oil inflam'd, sea-monster's spume,
And some, perchance, in the deep delve upraise, Or fir-wood, glaring in the weeping vault,
Drooping, e'en at the twelfth cold dreary day, Twice three slow gloomy months, with various ille
With still continued feeble pulse of life;

Sullen he struggles; such the love of life! The glebe, their fleece, their flesh, by hunger His lank and scanty berds around þim press, gnaw'd.

As, hunger-stung, to gritty ineal he grinds
Ah, gentle shepherd, thine the lot to tend, The bones of fish, or inward bark of trees,
Of all, that feel distress, the most assail'd, Their common sustenance. While ye, O swains,
Feeble, defenceless : Jenient be thy care :

Ye, happy at your ease, behold your sheep
But spread aronnd thy tenderest diligence

Feed on the open turf, or crowd the tilth,
In flowery spring-time, when the new-dropt lamb, Where, thick among the greens, with busy mouths
Tottering with weakness by his mother's side, They scoop white turnips: little care is yours;
Feels the fresh world about him; and each thorn, Only, at morning hour, to interpose
Hillock, or furrow, trips his feeble feet :

Dry food of oats, or hay, or brittle straw,
O, guard his meek sweet innocence from all The watery juices of the bossy root
Th’innumerous ills that rush around his life ; Absorbing; or from noxious air to screen
Mark the quick kite, with beak and talons prone, Your heavy teeming ewes, with wattled fence
Circling the skies to snatch him from the plain; Of furze or copse-wood, in the lofty field,
Observe the lurking crows; beware the brake, Which bleak ascends among the whistling winds.
There the sly fox the careless minute waits; Or, if your sheep are of Silurian breed,
Nor trust thy neighbour's dog, nor earth, nor sky: Nightly to house them dry on fern or straw,
Thy bosom to a thousand cares divide.

Silkening their feeces. Ye, nor rolling hut,
Eurus oft slings his hail; the tardy fields

Nor watchful dog, require; where never mar
Pay not their promis'd food; and oft the dam Of savage tears the air, where careless Night
O’er her weak twins with empty udder mourns, In balmy sleep lies lull'd, and only wakes
Or fails to guard, when the bold bird of prey To plenteous peace. Alas! o'er warmer zones
Alights, and hops in many turns around,

Wild Terrour strides: their stubborn rocks are rent;
And tires her also turning: to her aid

Their mountains sink; their yawning caverns flame;
Be nimble, and the weakest, in thine arms, And fiery torrents roll impetuous down,
Gently convey to the warm cote, and oft,

Proud cities deluging; Pompeian towers,
Between the lark's note and the nightingale's, And Herculanean, and what riotous stood
His hungry bleating still with tepid milk :

In Syrian valley, where now the Dead Sea In this soft office may thy children join,

?Mong solitary hills infectious lies.
And charitable habits learn in 'sport:
Nor yield bim to bimself, ere vernal airs

15 Mr. Joseph Nutt, an eminent apothecary at
Sprinkle thy little croft with daisy flowers. Hinckley; of whom see the history of that time,
Nor yet forget him : life has rising ills:
Various as ether is the pastoral care;

16 A river in Leicestershire.

p. 187.

See the swift furies, Famine, Plague, and War, With his white Aakes, that glisten through the vide; In frequent thunders rage o'er neighbouring realms, The sturdy rustic, in the middle wave, And spread their plains with desolation wide: Awaits to seize him rising ; one arm bears Yet your mild homesteads, ever-blooming, smile His lifted head above the limpid stream, Among embracing woods; and waft on high While the full clammy fleece the other laves The breath of plenty, from the ruddy tops Around, laborious, with repeated toil; Of chimneys, curling o'er the gloomy trees, And then resigns bim to the sunny bank, In airy azure ringlets, to the sky.

Where, bleating loud, he shakes his dripping locks. Nor ye by need are urg'd, as Attic swains,

Shear them the fourth or fifth return of morn, And Tarentine, with skins to clothe your sheep; Lest touch of busy ily-blows wound their skin : Expensive toil ; howe'er expedient found

Thy peaceful subjects without murmur yield
In fervid climates, while from Phoebus' beams Their yearly tribute : 't is the prudent part
They fled to rugged woods and tangling brakes. To cherish and be gentle, while ye strip
But those expensive toils are now no more,

The downy vesure from their tender sides.
Proud tyranny devours their flocks and herds : Press not too close; with caution turn the points;
Nor bleat of sheep may now, nor sound of pipe, And from the bead in regular rounds proceed :
Sooth the sad plains of once sweet Arcady,

But speedy, when ye chance to wound, with ar The shepherds' kingdom: dreary solitude

Prevent the wingy swarm and scorching heat; Spreads o'er Hymettus, and the shaggy vale And careful house them, if the lowering clouds Of Athens, which, in solemn silence, sheds Mingle their stores tumultuous: through the gloom Her venerable ruins to the dust.

Then thunder oft with ponderous wheels rolls loud, The weary Arabs roam froin plain to plain, And breaks the crystal uros of Heaven: аdown Guiding the languid herd in quest of food ; Falls streaming rain. Sometimes among the steeps And shift their little home's uncertain scene Of Cambrian glades (pity the Cambrian glades) With frequent farewell : strangers, pilgrims all, Fast tumbling brooks on brooks enormous swell, As were their fathers. No sweet fall of rain And sudden overwhelm their vanish'd fields : May there be heard ; nor sweeter liquid lapse Down with the food away the naked sheep, Of river, o'er the pebbles gliding by

Bleating in vain, are borne, and straw-built huts, In murmurs: goaded by the rage of thirst, And rifted trees, and heavy enormous rocks, Daily they journey to the distant clefts

Down with the rapid torrent to the deep.
Of craggy rocks, where gloomy palms o'erhang At shearing-time, along the lively vales,
The ancient welis, deep sunk by toil immense, Rural festivities are often heard :
Toil of the patriarchs, with sublime intent Beneath each blooming arbour all is joy
Themselves and long posterity to serve.

And lusty merriment: while on the grass
There, at the public hour of sultry noon,

The mingled youth in gaudy circles sport, They share the beverage, when to watering come, We think the golden age again return'd, And grateful umbrage, all the tribes around, And all the fabled Dryades in dance. And their lean flocks, whose various bleatings fill Leering they bound along, with laugbing air, The echoing caverns : then is absent none, To the shrill pipe, and deep remurmuring chords Fair nymph or shepherd, each inspiring each Of th' ancient harp, or tabor's hollow sound. To wit, and song, and dance, and active feats; While th' old apart, upon a bank reclin'd, In the same rustic scene, where Jacob won Attend the tuneful carol, suftly mixt Fair Rachael's bosomn, when a rock's vast weight With every murmur of the sliding wave, From the deep dark-mouth'd well his strength re- And every warble of the feather'd choir; mor'd,

Music of Paradise! which still is heard,
And to her circling sheep refreshment gave. When the heart listens; still the views appear

Such are the perils, such the toils of life, Of the first happy garden, when Content
In foreign climes. But speed thy flight, my Muse; To Nature's flowery scenes directs the sight.
Swift turns the year; and our unnumber'd flocks Yet we abandon those Elysian walks,
On Aceces overgrown uneasy lie.

Then idly for the lost delight repine:
Now, jolly swains, the harvest of your cares As greedy mariners, whose desperate sails
Prepare to reap, and seek the sounding caves Skim o'er the billows of the foamy food,
Of high Brigantium!), where, by ruddy flames, Fancy they see the lessening shores retire,
Vulcan's strong sons, with nervous arm, around And sigh a farewel to the sinking hills.
The steallv anvil and the glaring mass,

Could I recall those notes, which once the Muse Clatter their heavy hammers down by turns, Heard at a shearing, near the woody sides Flattening the steel; from their rough hands receive Of blue-topp'd Wreakin 18! Yet the carols sweet, The sharpen'd instrument, that from the flock Through the deep maze of the memorial cell, Severs the fleece. If verdant elder spreads

Faintly remurmur.

First arose in song Her silver flowers ; if humble daisies yield

Hoar-headed Damon, venerable swain, To yellow crowfoot, and luxuriant grass,

The soothest shepherd of the flowery vale, Gay shearing-time approaches. First, howe'er, “ This is no vulgar scene : no palace-roof Drire to the double fold, upon the brim

Was e'er so lofty, nor so nobly rise Of a clear river, gently drive the flock,

Their polish'd pillars, as these aged oaks, And plunge them one by one into the flood : Which o'er our feecy wealth and harmless sports Plung'd in the food, not long the struggler sinks, Thus have expanded wide their sheltering arms,

Thrice told an hundred summers. Sweet Content, 17 The caves of Brigantium—the forges of Shef- Ye gentle shepherds, pillow us at night.” field, in Yorkshire, where the shepherds' shears and all edge-tools are made.

18 A high hill in Shropshire.