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Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow!
Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend!
And temper all, thou world-reviving sun,
Into the perfect year! Nor ye who live

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In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride,

Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear.
Such themes as these the rural Maro sung

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To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height
Of elegance and taste, by Greece refined.

In ancient times, the sacred plough employed

The kings and awful fathers of mankind;

And some, with whom compared your insect tribes

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Are but the beings of a summer's day,

Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm

Of mighty war, then with victorious hand,
Disdaining little delicacies, seized

The plough, and, greatly independent, scorned
All the vile stores corruption can bestow.
Ye generous Britons, venerate the plough;
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,

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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 th' 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 verdant 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 withered hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And swells and deepens to the cherished eye.

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The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,
Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed
In full luxuriance to the sighing gales,
Where the deer rustle through the twining brake,
And the birds sing concealed. At once, arrayed
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 lavished 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

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Of sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk;

Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend

Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains,

And see the country, far diffused around,

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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.

1728.

FROM
AUTUMN

But see! the fading many-coloured woods,
Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown, a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue from wan declining green

To sooty dark. These now the lonesome Muse,
Low-whispering, lead into their leaf-strown walks,
And give the season in its latest view.

Meantime, light-shadowing all, a sober calm
Fleeces unbounded ether, whose least wave

Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn
The gentle current, while, illumined wide,
The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun,

And through their lucid veil his softened force

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Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time,
For those whom wisdom and whom Nature charm,
To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd,
And soar above this little scene of things,

To tread low-thoughted Vice beneath their feet,
To soothe the throbbing passions into peace,
And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks.

Thus solitary, and in pensive guise,

Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead

And through the saddened grove, where scarce is heard
One dying strain to cheer the woodman's toil.
Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint,
Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse;
While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks,
And each wild throat whose artless strains so late
Swelled all the music of the swarming shades,
Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit
On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock,
With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes,
And naught save chattering discord in their note.
Oh, let not, aimed from some inhuman eye,
The gun the music of the coming year
Destroy, and harmless, unsuspecting harm,
Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey,
In mingled murder fluttering on the ground!
The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires: for now the leaf
Incessant rustles from the mournful grove,
Oft startling such as, studious, walk below,
And slowly circles through the waving air;
But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams,
Till, choked and matted with the dreary shower,
The forest walks, at every rising gale,
Roll wide the withered waste and whistle bleak.
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields,
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their sunny robes resign; even what remained
Of stronger fruits fall from the naked tree;
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around,
The desolated prospect thrills the soul.

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FROM

THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE

O mortal man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate:
That like an emmet thou must ever moil
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date;
And certes there is for it reason great,

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For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,
Withouten that would come an heavier bale-

Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.

In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,

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With woody hill o'er hill encompassed round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,

Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found.

It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground;

And there a season atween June and May,

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Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned, A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,

No living wight could work, ne carèd even for play.

Was naught around but images of rest: Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between; And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kest, From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green, Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets played, And hurled everywhere their waters sheen, That, as they bickered through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.

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Joined to the prattle of the purling rills,
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale;
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep:
Yet all these sounds, yblent, inclinèd all to sleep.

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Full in the passage of the vale, above,

A sable, silent, solemn forest stood,

Where naught but shadowy forms was seen to move,
As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood;

And up the hills, on either side, a wood

Of blackening pines, ay waving to and fro,

Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;

And where this valley winded out, below,

The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.

A pleasing land of drowsy-hed it was:

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Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky.
There eke the soft delights, that witchingly
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,
And the calm pleasures, always hovered nigh;
But whate'er smacked of noyance or unrest
Was far, far off expelled from this delicious nest.
The landskip such, inspiring perfect ease,
Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight)
Close-hid his castle mid embowering trees,

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That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright,
And made a kind of checkered day and night.
Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate,
Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight
Was placed; and, to his lute, of cruel fate

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And labour harsh complained, lamenting man's estate.

Thither continual pilgrims crowded still,

From all the roads of earth that pass there by;

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For, as they chaunced to breathe on neighbouring hill,
The freshness of this valley smote their eye,
And drew them ever and anon more nigh,

Till clustering round th' enchanter false they hung,
Ymolten with his syren melody,

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While o'er th' enfeebling lute his hand he flung,

And to the trembling chords these tempting verses sung:

"Behold, ye pilgrims of this earth, behold!

See all but man with unearned pleasure gay!

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