To hear your strains, the cattle spurn their food;
The feather'd songsters leave their tender brood;
Around your seat the silent lambs advance;
And scrambling he-goats on the mountains dance.
But haste, Alexis, reach yon leafy shade,
Which mantling ivy round the oaks hath made:
There we'll retire, and list the warbling note
That flows melodious from the blackbird's throat;
Your easy numbers shall his songs inspire,
And every warbler join the general choir.
THE sun the summit of his orb hath gain'd;
No flecker'd clouds his azure path hath stain'd;
Our pregnant ewes around us cease to graze,
Stung with the keenness of his sultry rays;
The weary bullock from the yoke is led,
And youthful shepherds from the plains are fled
To dusky shades, where scarce a glimmering ray
Can dart its lustre through the leafy spray.
Yon cooling rivulet where the waters gleam,
Where springing flowers adorn the limpid stream,
Invites us where the drooping willow grows,
To guide our flocks, and take a cool repose.
To thy advice a grateful ear I'll lend;
The shades I'll court where slender osiers bend;
Our weanlings young shall crop the rising flower,
While we retire to yonder twining bower;
The woods shall echo back thy cheerful strains,
Admir'd by all our Caledonian swains.
There have I oft with gentle Delia stray'd
Amidst the embowering solitary shade,
Before the gods to thwart my wishes strove,
By blasting every pleasing glimpse of love :
For Delia wanders o'er the Anglian plains,
Where civil discord and sedition reigns.
There Scotia's sons in odious light appear,
Though we for them have wav'd the hostile spear:
For them my sire, enwrapp'd in curdled gore,
Breath'd his last moments on a foreign shore.
Six lunar months, my friend, will soon expire,
And she return to crown your fond desire.
For her, O rack not your desponding mind!
In Delia's breast a generous flame's confin'd,
That burns for Corydon, whose piping lay
Hath caus'd the tedious moments steal away;
Whose strains melodious mov'd the falling floods
To whisper Delia to the rising woods.
O! if your sighs could aid the floating gales,
That favourably swell their lofty sails,
Ne'er should your sobs their rapid flight give o'er,
Till Delia's presence grac'd our northern shore!
Though Delia greet my love, I sigh in vain ;
Such joy unbounded can I ne'er obtain.
What awful silence reigns throughout 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.
The west, yet ting'd 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.
What mighty power conducts the stars on high? Who bids these comets through our system fly? Who wafts the lightning to the icy pole,
And through our regions bids the thunders roll?
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 through the void in settled orbits fly?
That righteous Power, before whose heavenly eye The stars are. nothing, and the planets die;
Whose breath divine supports our mortal frame; Who made the lion wild and lambkin tame.
At his command the bounteous Spring returns; Hot Summer, raging o'er the Atlantic, burns; The yellow Autumn crowns our sultry toil, And Winter's snows prepare the cumbrous soil.
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.
Sway'd by his word, the nutrient dews descend,
And growing pastures to the moisture bend;
The vernal blossoms sip his falling showers;
The meads are garnish'd with his opening flowers.
For man, the object of his chiefest care,
Fowls he hath form'd to wing the ambient air: For him the steer his lusty neck doth bend; Fishes for him their scaly fins extend.
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.
Hush'd are the busy numbers of the day;
On downy couch they sleep their hours away.
Hail, balmy sleep, that sooths the troubled mind!
Lock'd 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
Through lonely thickets and untrodden ways;
But when pale Cynthia's sable empire's fled,
And hovering slumbers shun the morning bed,
Rous'd by the dawn, he wakes with frequent sigh,
And all his flattering visions quickly fly.
Now owls and bats infest the midnight scene;
Dire snakes envenom'd 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 pillows fly.
NEAR the heart of a fair spreading grove,
Whose foliage shaded the green,
A shepherd, repining at love,
In anguish was heard to complain :
"O Cupid! thou wanton young boy!
Since, with thy invisible dart,
Thou hast robb'd a fond youth of his joy,
In return grant the wish of his heart.
Send a shaft so severe from thy bow,
(His pining, his sighs to remove),
That Stella, once wounded, may know
How keen are the arrows of love.
No swain once so happy as I,
Nor tun'd with more pleasure the reed;
My breast never vented a sigh,
Till Stella approach'd the gay mead.
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