!

Mother severe of infinite delights !
Nothing, save rapine, indolence, and guile, 1770
And woes on woes, a still revolving train!
Whose horrid circle had made human life
Than non-existence worse ; but, taught by thee,
Ours are the plans of policy and peace;
To live likę brothers, and conjunctive all, 1775
Embellish life. While thus laborious crowds
Ply the tough oar, Philosophy directs
The ruling helm; or like the liberal breath
Of potent heaven, invisible, the sail
Swells out, and bears th' inferior world along. 1780

Nor to this evanescent speck of earth
Poorly confined, the radiant tracks on high
Are her exalted range; intent to gaze
Creation through; and, from that full complex
Of never-ending wonders, to conceive

1785
Of the SOLE Being right, who spoke the word,
And Nature moved complete, With inward view,
Thence on th’ ideal kingdom swift she turns
Her eye; and instant, at her powerful glance,
Th’obedient phantoms vanish or appear;

1790 Compound, divide, and into order shift, Each to his rank, from plain perception up To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train : To reason then, deducing truth from truth, And notion quite abstract; where first begins 1795 The world of spirits, action all, and life Unfettered and unmixed. 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, 1800 This Infancy of Being, cannot prove The final issue of the works of God, By boundless Love and perfect Wisdom formed, And ever rising with the rising mind.

:

AUTUMN.

The subject proposed. Addressed 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 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 discolored, fading woods. After a gentle, dusky day, moonlight. Autumnal meteors. Morning; to which succeeds a calm, pure, sunshiny day, such as usually shuts up the season. The harvest being gathered the country dissolved in joy. The whole concludes with a panegyric on a philosophical country life.

5

CROWNED with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on; the Doric reed once more,
Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost
Nitrous prepared, thc various-blossomed 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 care 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.

10

15

20

But she, too, pants for public virtue, she,
Though 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,

26 With golden light enlivened, wide invests The happy world. Attempered suns arise, Sweet-beamed, and shedding oft through lucid clouds A pleasing calm; while broad, and brown, below 30 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. 35 Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky; The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun By fits effulgent gilds th' illumined field, And black by fits the shadows sweep along. A gaily-checkered, heart-expanding view,

40 Far as the circling eye can shoot around, Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.

These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power! Whom labor still attends, and sweat, and pain; Yet the kind source of every gentle art,

45 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

50 Implanted, and profusely poured around Materials infinite; but idle all. Still unexerted, in th' unconscious breast, Slept the lethargic powers; corruption still, Voracious, swallowed what the liberal hand

56