SPRING. Argument. The subject proposed. Inscribed to the Countess of Hertford. The Season is described as it affects the various parts of Nature, ascending from the lower to the higher; with digressions arising from the subject. Its influence on inanimate Matter, on Vegetables, on brute Animals, and last on Man; concluding with a dissuasive from the wild and irregular passion of Love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind. COME, gentle SPRING, etherial Mildness, come, And see where surly WINTER passes off, Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them thin, Drives from their stalls, to where the well-used plough Lies in the furrow, loosen'd from the frost. With measured step, and liberal throws the grain The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene. Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious man Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow! Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend! And temper all, thou world-reviving Sun, Into the perfect year! nor ye who live In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride, Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear: Such themes as these the rural Maro sung To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height Of elegance and taste, by Greece refined, In ancient times, the sacred plough employ'd The kings, and awful fathers of mankind: And some, with whom compared your insect-tribes Are but the beings of a summer's day, Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm Of mighty war; then, with unwearied hand, Disdaining little delicacies, seized The plough, and greatly independent lived. Ye generous Britons, venerate the plough! And o'er yon hills, and long withdrawing vales, Let Autumn spread his treasures to the Sun, Luxuriant and unbounded: as the Sea, Far through his azure turbulent domain, Your empire owns, and from a thousand shores Wafts all the pomp of life into your ports; So with superior boon may your rich soil, Exuberant, Nature's better blessings pour O'er every land, the naked nations clothe, And be the' exhaustless granary of a world! Nor only through the lenient air this change, Delicious, breathes; the penetrative Sun, His force deep-darting to the dark retreat Of vegetation, sets the steaming power At large, to wander o'er the verdant earth, United light and shade! where the sight dwells By Nature's swift and secret working hand, Within its crimson folds. Now from the town [drops Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze Of sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk; Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains, And see the country, far diffused around, One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower Of mingled blossoms; where the raptured eye Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies. If, brush'd from Russian wilds, a cutting gale Rise not, and scatter from his humid wings Or scatters o'er the bloom the pungent dust Or when the' envenom'd leaf begins to curl, Be patient, swains; these cruel-seeming winds Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repress'd Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharged with That o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne, [rain, In endless train, would quench the summer-blaze, And, cheerless, drown the crude unripen'd year. The north-east spends his rage; he now shut up Within his iron cave, the' effusive south Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent. At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise, |