Detains, athwart th' impurpling haze,
The golden glance of westering rays.
The rook-lov'd groves and grange between, Dark hedge-row elms with meadows green, The grey church peeping half through trees, Slopes waving corn as list the breeze,
The podding bean-field striped with balks,
The hurdled sheep-fold, hoof-trod walks,
The road that winds aslant the down,
The skirting furze-brake, fallow brown,
The wind-mill's scarcely circling vane,
The villager's returning wain,
The orient window's crimson blaze
That flares obtrusive on the gaze,
The eager heifer's echoing low
Far from her calf compell❜d to go,
From the tall ash the throstle's lay
That bids farewell to lingering day,
The dale's blue smokes that curling rise,
The plodding hind that homeward hies,
The stilly hum from glimmering woods,
The lulling lapse of distant floods,
The whitening mist that winding spreads
As winds the brook adown the meads,
The plank and rail that bridge the stream,
The rising full-moon's umber'd gleam,
Twixt severing clouds that richly dight
Let gradual forth her brightening light,
No more the onward foot beguile
Where pollards rude protect the stile.
Whose look now scans the dusky sphere To note successive stars appear? Who now the dawning flush descries That upward streams o'er northern skies; Or the wan meteor's lurid light
That headlong trailing mocks the sight?
Midst the lush grass who now require The glow-worm's ineffectual fire? Or catch the bells from distant vale, That load by fits the freshening gale, Till flurrying from her ivied spray The moping owl rewings her way? When Autumn sere the copse invades No more you haunt the woodland glades, To eye the change from bough to bough; Or eddying leaf descending slow, That, lighting near her calm retreat, Prompts the shy hare to shift her seat ; Or peering squirrel nimbly glean Each nut that hung before unseen; Or flitting down from thistle born; Or glossy haw that crowds the thorn, Whence oft in saws observers old
Portend the length of winter's cold,
Wak'd by the flail's redoubling sound, When spangling frost o'ercrisps the ground, No more forego bewildering sleep
To climb with Health yon airy steep.
When deepening snows oppress the plain The birds no more their boon obtain ; The red-breast hovering round your doors No more his stated mess implores Where all that needed found relief, No tearful eye laments their grief; No lenient hand dispels their pain; Fainting they sue, yet sue in vain.
But though the scenes you now deplore
With heart and eye be your's no more;
Though now each long known object seen
Unreal as the morning's dream,
You still with retrospective glance,
Or rapt in some poetic transe,
At will may ev'ry charm renew;
Each smiling prospect still review:
Through memory's power and fancy's aid
The pictur'd phantoms ne'er shall fade.
And, oh! where e'er your footsteps roam, Where e'er you fix your future home, May joys attending crown the past,
And heaven's best mansion be your last.
WHEN day declining sheds a milder gleam,
What time the May-fly haunts the pool or stream;
When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,
What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed;
Then be the hour to steal adown the vale,
And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's tale;
To hear the clamorous curlew call his mate,
Or the soft quail his tender pain relate;
To see the swallow sweep the dark'ning plain
Belated, to support her infant train;
To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring
Dash round the steeple, unsubdu'd of wing :
Amusive birds!-say where 's your hid retreat
When the frost rages and the tempests beat?
Epist. VIII. EPISTLES DESCRIPTIVE, &t:
Whence your return, by such nice instinct led
When Spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head?
Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride,
The GOD OF NATURE is your secret guide!
While deep'ning shades obscure the face of day
To yonder bench leaf-shelter'd let us stray,
Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,
And all the fading landscape sinks in night;
To hear the drowsy dor come brushing by
With buzzing wing, or the shrill cricket cry ;
To see the feeding bat glance through the wood;
To catch the distant falling of the flood;
While o'er the cliff th' awaken'd churn-owl hung Through the still gloom protracts his chattering
While high in air and pois'd upon his wings,
Unseen, the soft-enamor'd woodlark sings:
These, NATURE's works, the curious mind employ,
Inspire a soothing melancholy joy :
As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain
Steals o'er each cheek, and thrills the creeping vein!
Each rural sight, each sound, each smell combine;
The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine;
The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,
Or cottage-chimney smoaking through the trees.
The chilling night-dews fall:-away, retire;
For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire!
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