And o'er your 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 vernant 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 promised fruit

Lies yet a little embryo, unperceived,

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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,

Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops

From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze
Of sweet-brier hedges I pursue my walk;

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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

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

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

For oft, engender'd by the hazy north,

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Myriads on myriads, insect armies waft*

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 involved in smoke, the latent foe
From every cranny suffocated falls:

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Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust

Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe:

Or, when the' envenom'd leaf begins to curl,

With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest;
Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill,

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The little trooping birds unwisely scares.

Be patient, swains; these cruel-seeming winds

Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repress'd

Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharged with rain, That, o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne,

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In endless train, would quench the Summer-blaze,

And, cheerless, drown the crude unripen'd year.

The North-east spends his rage, and now shut up
Within his iron caves,-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,
Scarce staining ether; but by fast degrees,
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails
Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep
Sits on the horizon round a settled gloom :
Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed,

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* The editions subsequent to that of 1766 have "warp.”—EDIT.

Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope and every 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 aspen tall. The' uncurling floods, diffused
In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. "T is 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 the' approaching sign to strike, at once,

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Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,
And forests seem, impatient, to demand

The promised 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 shower is scarce to patter heard,
By such as wander through the forest-walks,
Beneath the' umbrageous multitude of leaves.

;

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But who can hold the shade, while Heaven descends

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In universal bounty, shedding herbs,

And fruits, and flowers, on Nature's ample lap?

Swift fancy fired anticipates their growth;

And, while the milky nutriment distils,

Beholds the kindling country colour round.

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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

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Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam.

The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes

The' illumined mountain, through the forest streams,

Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,

Far smoking o'er the' interminable plain,

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In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.

Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around.
Full swell the woods; their every music wakes,

Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks

Increased, the distant bleatings of the hills,
The 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 every 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 showery prism;
And to the sage-instructed eye unfold

The various twine of light, by thee disclosed
From the white mingling maze.

Not so the swain ;

He wondering views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amazed
Beholds the' amusive arch before him fly,

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Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds,

A soften'd shade, and saturated earth

Awaits the morning-beam, to give to light,

Raised through ten thousand different plastic tubes,

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The balmy treasures of the former day.

Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild,

O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power
Of botanist to number up their tribes :
Whether he steals along the lonely dale,

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In silent search; or through the forest, rank

With what the dull incurious weeds account,

Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain-rock,

Fired by the nodding verdure of its brow.

With such a liberal hand has Nature flung

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Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds,

Innumerous mix'd them with the nursing mould,
The moistening 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 lived in innocence, and told
A length of golden years; unflesh'd in blood;

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A stranger to the savage arts of life,

Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease;

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The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world.

The first fresh dawn then waked the gladden'd race

Of uncorrupted man, nor blush'd to see

The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam:

For their light slumbers gently fumed away;

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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

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Their hours away: while in the rosy vale

Love breathed 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,

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Was known among these happy sons of Heaven :
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:

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Soft sigh'd the flute; the tender voice was heard,
Warbling the varied heart; the woodlands round
Applied their choir; and winds and waters flow'd
In consonance. Such were those prime of days.

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But now those white unblemish'd minutes,* whence The fabling poets took their golden age,

Have burst their bounds; and Reason, half-extinct,

Or impotent, or else approving, sees

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The foul disorder. Senseless and deform'd,

"Manners" was the reading of Murdoch's edition, 1762.-EDIT.