So with superior boon may your rich soil,
Exuberant, nature's better blessings pour
O'er ev'ry land, the naked nations clothe,
And be th' 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 streaming pow'r
At large, to wander o'er the verdant earth,
In various hues; but chiefly thee, gay green!
Thou smiling nature's universal robe!

United light and shade! where the sight dwells
With growing strength, and ever-new delight.

From the moist meadow to the wither'd hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And swells, and deepens, to the cherish'd eye.
The hawthorn whitens, and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,
Till the whole leafy forest stands display'd,
In full luxuriance, to the sighing gales;
Where the deer rustle through the twining brake,
And the birds sing conceal'd. At once array'd
In all the colours of the flushing year,

By nature's swift and secret-working hand,
The garden glows, and fills the liberal air

With lavish fragrance; while the promis'd fruit
Lies yet a little embryo, unperceiv'd,

Within its crimson folds. Now from the town,
Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps,
Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields, [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 diffus'd around,

One boundless blush, one white-empurpled show'r
Of mingled blossoms, where the raptur'd 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

The clammy mildew; or, dry-blowing, breathe
Untimely frost; before whose baleful blast

The full-grown Spring through all her foliage shrinks
Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste.

For oft, engender'd by the hazy north,
Myriads on myriads, insect armies warp
Keen in the poison'd breeze; and wasteful eat,
Through buds and bark, into the blacken'd core
Their eager way. A feeble race! yet oft

The sacred sons of vengeance; on whose course
Corrosive famine waits, and kills the year.
To check this plague, the skilful farmer chaff
And blazing straw before his orchard burns;
Till, all involv'd in smoke, the latent foe
From every cranny suffocated falls:

Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust
Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe:

Or, when th' envenom'd leaf begins to curl,
With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest;
Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill,
The little trooping birds unwisely scares.

Be patient, swains: these cruel-seeming winds Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repress'd Those deep'ning clouds on clouds surcharg'd with rain That, o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne,

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, th' effusive south

Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven
Breathes the big clouds with vernal show'rs distent
At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining ether; but by swift degrees,
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails
Along the loaded sky; and mingling deep,
Sits on th' horizon like a settled gloom:
Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed,
Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of ev'ry hope and ev'ry joy;

The wish of nature. Gradual sinks the breeze
Into a perfect calm; that not a breath

Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,

Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves
Of aspin tall. Th' uncurling floods diffus'd
'In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course, 'Tis silence all,
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and, mute imploring, eye
The falling verdure. Hush'd in short suspense,
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;
And wait th' approaching sign to strike; at once,
Into the gen❜ral choir. E'en mountains, vales,
And forests, seem impatient, to demand
The promis'd sweetness. Man superior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise,
And looking lively gratitude. At last,
The clouds consign their treasures to the fields;
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow
In large effusion o'er the freshen'd world.
The stealing show'r is scarce to patter heard,
By such as wander through the forest-walks,
Beneath th' umbrageous multitude of leaves.
But who can hold the shade, while heav'n descends
In universal bounty, shedding herbs,

And fruits and flow'rs, on nature's ample lap?
Swift fancy fir'd anticipates their growth;
And, while the milky nutriment distils,
Beholds the kindling country colour round.
Thus all day long the full-distended clouds
Indulge their genial stores, and well-shower'd earth
Is deep enrich'd with vegetable life;

Till, in the western sky, the downward sun
Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush

Of broken clouds, gay shifting to his beam.

The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes

Th' illumin'd mountain; through the forest streams,
Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,
Far smoking o'er th' interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.

Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around.
Full swell the woods: their ev'ry music wakes,
Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks

Increas d, the distant bleatings of the hills
And hollow lows responsive from the vales,
Whence, blending all, the sweeten'd zephyr springs
Meantime, refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense, and ev'ry hue unfolds,
In fair proportion running from the red,
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful Newton, the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting on the sun, thy show'ry prism;
And, to the sage instructed eye, unfold

The various twine of light, by thee disclos'd
From the white mingling maze. Not so the boy:
He wond'ring views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amaz'd
Beholds th' amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away.

Still night succeeds,

A soften'd shade, and saturated earth

Awaits the morning beam, to give to light,

Rais'd through ten thousand diff'rent plastic tubes,
The balmy treasures of the former day.

Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild,
O'er all the deep green earth, beyond the pow'r
Of botanist to number up their tribes:
Whether he steals along the lonely dale,

In silent search; or through the forest, rank
With what the dull incurious weeds account,

Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain-rock,
Fir'd by the nodding verdure of its brow,
With such a lib'ral hand has nature flung
Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds,
Innum❜rous mixed them with the nursing mould,
The moist ning current, and prolific rain.

But who their virtues can declare? who pierce,
With vision pure, into these secret stores
Of health, and life, and joy? the food of man,
While yet he liv'd in innocence, and told
A length of golden years, unflesh'd in blood;
A stranger to the savage arts of life,
Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease,
The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world

The first fresh dawn then wak'd the gladden'd race Of uncorrupted man, nor blush'd to see

The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam :
For their light slumbers gently fum'd away;
And up they rose as vigorous as the sun,
Or to the culture of the willing glebe,

Or to the cheerful tendance of the flock.
Meantime the song went round; and dance and sport,
Wisdom, and friendly talk, successive, stole
Their hours away. While in the rosy vale
Love breath'd his infant sighs from anguish free,
And full replete with bliss; save the sweet pain,
That, inly thrilling, but exalts it more.
Nor yet injurious act, nor surly deed,

Was known among those happy sons of heav'n;
For reason and benevolence were law.
Harmonious nature too look'd smiling on.
Clear shone the skies, cool'd with eternal gales,
And balmy spirit all. The youthful sun
Shot his best rays; and still the gracious clouds
Dropp'd fatness down; as o'er the swelling mead
The herds and flocks, commixing, play'd secure.
This when, emergent from the gloomy wood,
The glaring lion saw, his horrid heart
Was meeken'd, and he join’d his sullen joy,
For music held the whole in perfect peace :
Soft sigh'd the flute: the tender voice was heard,
Warbling the varied heart; the woodlands round
Applied their quire; and winds and waters flow'd
In consonance. Such were those prime of days.
But now those white unblemish'd manners, whence
The fabling poets took their golden age,

Are found no more amid these iron times,

These dregs of life! Now the distemper'd mind
Has lost that concord of harmonious pow'rs,
Which forms the soul of happiness; and all
Is off the poise within; the passions all

Have burst their bounds; and reason, half-extinct,
Or impotent, or else approving, sees

The foul disorder. Senseless and deform'd,
Convulsive anger storms at large; or, pale

And silent, settles into fell revenge.