SEDUCTION RESISTED; THE TEMPTATION; ARTFUL CONTRAST Wealth, health, respect, delight, and love, are yours: OF LABORIOUS VIRTUE AND LUXURIOUS VICE. THE TEMPTER Last on my list appears a match of love 'Hope of my life, dear sovereign of my breast, Which, since I knew thee, knows not joy nor rest; Know thou art all that my delighted eyes, My fondest thoughts, my proudest wishes, prize; And is that bosom (what on earth so fair?) To cradle some coarse peasant's sprawling heir? To be that pillow, which some surly swain May treat with scorn, and agonize with pain? Art thou, sweet maid, a ploughman's wants to share, To dread his insult, to support his care? To hear his follies, his contempt to prove, And (0, the torment!) to endure his love; Till want, and deep regret, those charms destroy, That time would spare, for rapture to enjoy ? 'With him, in varied pains, from morn till night, Your hours shall pass; yourself a ruffian's right; Your softest bed shall be the knotted wool; Your purest drink, the waters of the pool; Your sweetest food will but your life sustain ; And your best pleasure be a rest from pain; [abate, While through each year, as health and strength You'll weep your woes, and wonder at your fate; And cry, "Behold, as life's last cares come on, My burthens growing, when my strength is gone." 'Now turn with me, and all the young desire, That taste can form, that fancy can require ; All that excites enjoyment, or procures Sparkling, in cups of gold, your wines shall flow, 'Your female friends, though gayest of the gay, Shall see you happy, and shall, sighing, say, While smothered envy rises in the breast, "O, that we lived so beauteous and so blest!" 'Come, then, my mistress and my wife :-1 for she Who trusts my honor is the wife for me; Your slave, your husband, and your friend, employ, In search of pleasures we may both enjoy.' To this the damsel, meekly firm, replied: 'My mother loved, was married, toiled and died: With joys she'd griefs, had troubles in her course, But not one grief was pointed by remorse; My mind is fixed, to Heaven I resign, And be her love, her life, her comforts, mine.' Tyrants have wept; and those with hearts of steel, Who caused the anguish they disdained to heal, Have at some time the power of virtue known, And felt another's good promote their own: Our knight, relenting, now befriends the youth Who took the maid, with innocence and truth; And finds in that fair deed a sacred joy, That will not perish, and that cannot cloy ;A living joy, that shall its vigor keep, When beauty all decays, and all the passions sleep. Odes for November. HOOD'S "AUTUMN.” I SAW old Autumn in the misty morn Where are the songs of Summer? - With the sun, 0 go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded Under the languid downfall of her hair: She wears a coronal of flowers faded Upon her forehead, and a face of care; There is enough of withered everywhere To make her bower, -and enough of gloom; There is enough of sadness to invite If only for the rose that died, whose doom Is beauty's, she that with the living bloom Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light; There is enough of sorrowing, and quite Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear, Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl; Enough of fear and shadowy despair, To frame her cloudy prison for the soul! HERRICK'S "FARMER." SWEET Country life, to such unknown, Whose lives are others', not their own! But, serving courts and cities, be Less happy, less enjoying thee. Thou never ploughed the ocean's foam, To seek and bring rough pepper home; Nor to the eastern Ind dost rove, To bring from thence the scorchéd clove; Nor, with the loss of thy loved rest, Bring'st home the ingot from the West. No; thy ambition's master-piece Flies no thought higher than a fleece; Or how to pay thy hinds, and clear All scores, and so to end the year; But walk'st about thy own dear grounds, Not craving others' larger bounds; For well thou know'st 't is not the extent Of land makes life, but sweet content. When now the cock, the ploughman's horn, Calls for the lily-wristed morn, Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go, Which, though well soiled, yet thou dost know That the best compost for the lands Is the wise master's feet and hands. There, at the plough, thou find'st thy team, And cheers them up by singing how And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine, And as thou look'st, the wanton steer, Of short, sweet grass, as backs with wool; A shepherd piping on the hill. On which the young men and maids meet Thy witty wiles to draw, and get Philips's "Cider." THE PROPER ASPECT FOR AN ORCHARD; OPEN TO THE WEST, WITH HILLS ON THE NORTH. Whoe'er expects his laboring trees should bend Naught fear he from the west, whose gentle warmth Next, let the planter, with discretion meet, To what adapted, what it shuns averse: He hopes an apple-vintage, and invokes SOIL PROPER FOR ORCHARDS; WHERE RYE GROWS WELL; But, farmer, look, where full-eared sheaves of rye Grow wavy on the tilth, that soil select For apples; thence thy industry shall gain Ten-fold reward; thy garners, thence with store Surcharged, shall burst; thy press with purest juice Shall flow, which, in revolving years, may try Thy feeble feet, and bind thy faltering tongue. Such is the Kentchurch, such Dantzeyan ground, Such thine, O learned Brome, and Capel such, Willisian Burlton, much-loved Geers his Marsh, And Sutton-acres, drenched with regal blood Of Ethelbert, when to the unhallowed feast Of Mercian Offa he invited came, To treat of spousals: long connubial joys He promised to himself, allured by fair Elfrida's beauty; but deluded died In height of hopes-O! hardest fate, to fall By show of friendship, and pretended love! ALLUSION TO THE SLIDING OF MARCLEY HILL. I nor advise, nor reprehend the choice Of Marcley Hill; the apple nowhere finds A kinder mould: yet 't is unsafe to trust Deceitful ground: who knows but that, once more, This mount may journey, and, his present site Forsaking, to, thy neighbors' bounds transfer The goodly plants, affording matter strange For law debates? If, therefore, thou incline To deck this rise with fruits of various tastes, Fail not by frequent vows to implore success ; Thus piteous Heaven may fix the wandering glebe. CLAYEY AND GRAVELLY SOILS MAY BE MADE TO GROW PEARS. But if (for Nature doth not share alike EVERY SOIL GOOD FOR SOMETHING, NATURALLY OR BY CUL- SAMPHIRE-GATHERERS. Thus naught is useless made; nor is there land, But what, or of itself, or else compelled, Affords advantage. On the barren heath The shepherd tends his flock, that daily crop Their verdant dinner from the mossy turf, Sufficient; after them the cackling goose, Close grazer, finds wherewith to ease her want. What should I more? Ev'n on the cliffy height Of Penmenmaur, and that cloud-piercing hill, Plinlimmon, from afar the traveller kens, Astonished, how the goats their shrubby browze Gnaw pendent; nor untrembling canst thou see How from a scraggy rock, whose prominence Half overshades the ocean, hardy men, Fearless of rending winds, and dashing waves, Cut samphire, to excite the squeamish gust Of pampered luxury. Then, let thy ground Not lie unlabored; if the richest stem Refuse to thrive, yet who would doubt to plant Somewhat, that may to human use redound, And penury, the worst of ills, remove? MUCKING APPLE-TREES IS BUT OF TEMPORARY BENEFIT. There are, who, fondly studious of increase, CIRCULAR TRENCHING AND WATERING IMPORTANT TO APPLE- Tho' this art fails, despond not; little pains, To sink a circling trench, and daily pour THE EFFECTS OF THE SUN ON SOIL. DROUGHT AND HEATS Thus the great light of heaven, that in his course Surveys and quickens all things, often proves Noxious to planted fields, and often men Perceive his influence dire; sweltering they run His victims; youths, and virgins, in their flower, TRIBUTE TO MISS WINCHCOMB. Such heats prevailed, when fair Eliza, last Of Winchcomb's name (next thee in blood, and worth, O fairest St.John !) left this toilsome world THE LEGEND OF ARICONIUM, A CITY IN HEREFORDSHIRE; DE- But if it please the sun's intemperate force In elder days, ere yet the Roman bands, Of kings, and heroes resolute in war, CAUSES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF ARICONIUM; DROUGHT; For now the fields Labored with thirst, Aquarius had not shed |