SPRING. The subject proposed. Inscribed to the Countess of Hertford. The Season is described as it affects the various parts of Nature, ascending .rom the lower to the higher; with digressions arising from the subject. Its influence on inanimate Matter, on Vegetables, on brute Animals, and last on Man; concluding with a dissuasive from the wild and irregular passion of Love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind.` COME, gentle SPRING, ethereal Mildness, come, O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts 5 In soft assemblage, listen to my song, Which thy own Season paints; when Nature all 10 And see where surly WINTER passes off, Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts: His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, The shatter'd forest, and the ravaged vale; While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch, 15 Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, The mountains lift their green heads to the sky As yet the trembling year is unconfirm'd, And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze, And sing their wild notes to the listening waste. 20 25 25 |