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Our languid joints we'll peaceably recline, And 'midst the flowers and opening blossoms dine.

PASTORAL III.-Night.

AMYNTAS—FLORELLUS.

AMYNTAS.

WHILE yet grey Twilight does his empire hold,
Drive all our heifers to the peaceful fold.
With sullied wing grim Darkness soars along,
And larks to nightingales resign the song:
The weary ploughman flies the waving fields,
To taste what fare his humble cottage yields;
As bees, that daily thro' the meadows roam,
Feed on the sweets they have prepared at home.

FLORELLUS.

The grassy meads that smiled serenely gay,
Cheered by the ever-burning lamp of day,
In dusky hue attired, are cramped with colds,
And springing flowerets shut their crimson folds.

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AMYNTAS.

What awful silence reigns thro'out the shade! The peaceful olive bends his drooping head; No sound is heard o'er all the gloomy maze; Wide o'er the deep the fiery meteors blaze.

FLORELLUS.

The west, yet tinged with Sol's effulgent ray, With feeble light illumes our homeward way; The glowing stars with keener lustre burn, While round the earth their glowing axles turn.

AMYNTAS.

What mighty power conducts the stars on high! Who bids these comets thro' our system fly! Who wafts the lightning to the icy pole,

And thro' our regions bids the thunders roll?

FLORELLUS.

But say, what mightier power from nought could raise

The earth, the sun, and all that fiery maze
Of distant stars that gild the azure sky,
And thro' the void in settled orbits fly?

AMYNTAS.

That righteous Power, before whose heavenly eye The stars are nothing, and the planets die;

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Whose breath divine supports our mortal frame ;

Who made the lion wild and lambkin tame.

FLORELLUS.

At His command the bounteous Spring re

turns ;

Hot Summer, raging o'er th' Atlantic, burns; The yellow Autumn crowns our sultry toil; And Winter's snows prepare the cumbrous soil.

AMYNTAS.

By Him the morning darts his purple ray ;
To Him the birds their early homage pay;
With vocal harmony the meadows ring,
While swains in concert heavenly praises sing.

FLORELLUS.

Swayed by his word, the nutrient dews descend, And growing pastures to the moisture bend; The vernal blossoms sip his falling showers; Themeads are garnished with his opening flowers.

AMYNTAS.

For man, the object of his chiefest care, Fowls he hath formed to wing the ambient air: For him the steer his lusty neck doth bend ; Fishes for him their scaly fins extend.

FLORELLUS.

;

Wide o'er the orient sky the moon appears,
A foe to Darkness and his idle fears
Around her orb the stars in clusters shine,
And distant planets 'tend her silver shrine.

AMYNTAS.

Hushed are the busy numbers of the day;
On downy couch they sleep their hours away.
Hail, balmy sleep, that sooths the troubled
mind!

Locked in thy arms, our cares a refuge find.
Oft do you tempt us with delusive dreams,
When wildering Fancy darts her dazzling
beams.

Asleep, the lover with his mistress strays
Thro' lonely thickets and untrodden ways;
But when pale Cynthia's sable empire's fled,
And hovering slumbers shun the morning bed,
Roused by the dawn, he wakes with frequent
sigh,

And all his flattering visions quickly fly.

FLORELLUS.

Now owls and bats infest the midnight scene; Dire snakes envenomed twine along the green; Forsook by man the rivers mourning glide, And groaning echoes swell the noisy tide;

Straight to our cottage let us bend our way;
My drowsy powers confess sleep's magic sway.
Easy and calm upon our couch we'll lie,
While sweet reviving slumbers round our pil-
lows fly.

THE SIMILE.

AT noontide, as Colin and Sylvia lay
Within a cool jessamin bower,

A butterfly, waked by the heat of the day,
Was sipping the juice of each flow'r.

Near the shade of this covert a young shepherd boy

The gaudy brisk flutterer spies,

Who held it as pastime to seek and destroy
Each beautiful insect that flies.

From the lily he hunted this fly to the rose ; From the rose to the lily again;

Till, weary with tracing its motions, he chose To leave the pursuit with disdain.

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