Thomson. durchaus unbemerkt geblieben find, u. f. f. Elay on Pope's

Genins, Vol. I. p. 42. ff. Auch in Dr. Johnson's Res
bensbeschreibung unsers Dichters findet man eine scharfsinni.
ge Charakteristik seines Gedichts. (Vol. IV. p. 271. fl.). -
Auch verdient darüber Dr. Blair in seiner 40sten Vorlesung
nachgelesen zu werden; und vorzüglich Aikin's Esay on the
Plan and Character of Thomson's Seasons, vor seiner, auch in
Deutschland nachgedruckten Ausgabe derselben. Eine Ues
berfekung dieses Versuchs, f. in meinem Brittischen Hius
feum für die Deutschen, 5. V. S. 376.

SPRING; v. 960—1173

Flush'd by the spirit of the genial year,
Now from the virgin's cheek a fresher bloom
Shoots, less and leis, the, live carnation round;
Her lips blush deeper sweets; The breathes of

youth;
The 1 hining moisture swells into her eyes
In brighter flows; her wishing bofom heaves,
With palpitations wild; kind tumults seize
Her veins, and all her yielding foul is love.
From the keen gaze her lover turns away,
Full of the dear extatic power, and sick
With fighing languishment. Ah then, ye fair!
Be greatly cautious of your sliding hearts
Dare not th' infectious figh; the pleading look,
Down caft, and low, in meek fubmission drest,
But full of guile. Let not the fervent tongue,
Prompt to deceive, with adulation smooth,
Gain on your purpos'd will. Nor in the bower,
Where woodbins flaunt, and roses shed a couch,
While evening draws her crimion curtains round,
Trust your soft minutes with betraying Man,

And let th' aspiring youth beware of love,
Of the smooth glance beware; for 'tis tob late,

When

Thomson.

When on his heart the torrent-foftness pours.
Then wisdom prostrate lies, and fading fame'
Dissolves in air away; while the fond soul,
Wrapt in gay visions of unreal bliss,
Still paints th' illusive form; the kindling grace;
Th’inticing smile; the modest-seeming eye,
Beneath whose beauteous beams, belying heaven,
Lurk searchless cunning, cruelty and death;
And still, false. warbling in his cheated ear,
Her fyren voice, enchanting, draws him on
To.guileful shores, and meads of fatal joy.

Even present, in the fatal lap of love
Inglorious laid; while music flows around,
Perfumes, and oils, and wine, and wanton hours;
Amid the roses fierce Repentance rears
Her snaky crest; a quick-returning pang
Shoots thro' the conscious heart; where honour

still,
And great design, against the oppressive load
Of luxury, by fits, impatient heave.

But absent, what fantastic woes, arrous'd
Rage, in each thought, by restless musing fed,
Chill the warm cheek, and blast the bloom of life!
Neglected fortune flies; and 1 liding swift,
Prone into ruin, fall his scorn'd affairs.
'Tis nought but gloom around: the darkened sun
Looses his light: the rofy-bofom'd Spring
To weeping fancy pines; and yon bright arch,
Contracted, bends into a duf ky vault.
All Nature fades extinct; and she alone
Heard, felt, and seen, postesses every thought,
Fills every sense, and pants in every vein.
Books are but formal dulness, tedious friends;
And iad amid the social band he fits,
Lonely, and unattentive. From his tongue
Th' unfinish'd period falls: while borne away
On swelling thought, his wafted spirit flies
To the vain bosom of his distant fair;

2

Thomson. And leaves the semblance of a lover, fix'd

In melancholy fite, with head declin'd,
And love dejected eyes. Sudden he starts,
Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs
To glimmering Shades, and lympathetic glooms;
Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling stream,
Romantic, hangs; there thro' the pensive dusk
Strays, in heart-thrilling meditation loft,
Indulging all to love ; or on the bank
Thrown, amid drooping lilies, fwells the breeze
With fighs unceasing, and the brook with tears,
Thus in soft anguish he consumes the day,
Nor quits his deep retirement, till the Moon
Peeps thro' the chambers of the fleecy east,
Enlightened by degrees, and in her train.
Leads on the gentle hours; then forth he walks,
Beneath the trembling languish of her beam,
With softened soul, and wooes the bird of eve
To mingle woes with his : or, while the world
And all the fons of Care lie hush'd in sleep,
Associates with the midnight shadows drear;
And, fighing to the lonely taper, pours
His idly-tortur'd heart into the page,
Meant for the moving messenger of love;
Where rapture burns on rapture, every

line
With rising frenzy fir'd. But if on bed
Delirious fung, fleep from his pillow flies.
All night he tolles, nor the balmy power
In any posture finds; till the grey morn
Lifts her pale luftre on the paler wretch,
Exanimate by love; and then perhaps
Exhausted Nature finks a while to rest,
Still interrupted by distracted dreams,
That o'er the fick imagination rife,
And in black colours paint the mimic scene.
Oft with th' enchantrels of his soul he talks;
Sometimes in crouds distrels'd; or if retir'd
To secret winding flower-enwoven bowers,
Far from the dull impertinence of Man,
Just as he, credulous, his endless cares

Be.

Begins to lose in blind oblivious love,
Snatch'd from her yielded hand, he knows not

how,
Thro' forests huge, and long untravel'd heaths
With desolation brown, he wanders waste,
In night and tempeft wrapt; or í hrinks aghaft,
Back, from the bending precipice; or wades
The turbid stream below, and strives to reach
The farther shore; where fuccourless, and lad,
She with extended arms his aid implores;
But strives in vain: borne by th' outrageous flood
To distance down, he rides the ridgy wave,
Or whelm'd beneath the boiling eddy finks.

These are the charming agonies of love,
Whose misery delights. But thro' the heart
Should jealousy its venom once diffuse,
'Tis then delightful misery no more,
But agony unmix'd, incessant gall,
Corroding every thought, and blasting all
Love's paradise. Ye fairy prospects, then,
Ye beds of roses, and ye bowers of joy,
Farewel! Ye gleamings of departed peace,
Shine out your last! the yellow-tinging plague
Internal vision taints, and in a night
Of livid gloom imagination wraps.
Ah! then, instead of love-enlivened cheeks,
Of funny features, and of ardent eyes
With flowing rapture bright, dark looks succeed,
Suffus'd, and glaring with untender fire;
A clouded aspect, and a burning cheek,
Where the whole poison'd foul, malignant, fits,
And frightens love away. - Ten thousand fears
Invented wild, ten thousand frantic views
Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms
For which he melts in fondness, eat him up
With fervent anguish, and consuming rage.
In vain reproaches lend their idle aid,
Deceitful pride, and resolution frail,
Giving false peace a moment. Fancy pours,

Afresh,

Thomson. Afresh, her beauties on his busy thought,

Her first endearments twining round the soul,
With all the witchcraft of ensnaring love.
Straight the fierce storm involves his mind anew,
Flames thro' the nerves, and boils along the veins;
While anxious doubts distract the tortur'd heart :
For even the fad assurance of his fears
Were ease to what he feels. Thus the warm

youth,
Whom love deludes into his thorny wilds,
Thro' flowery-tempting paths, or leads a life
Of fevered rapture, or of cruel care ;
His brightest Hames extinguish'd all, and all
His brightest moments running down to waste.

But happy they! the happiest of their Kind!
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings

blend.
'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
Attuning all their passions into love;
Where friendi hip full-exerts her foftest power,
Perfect eftecm, enlivened by desire
Ineffable, and lympathy of foul;
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing

will,
With boundless confidence: for nought bat love
Can answer love, and render bliss fecure.
Let him, ungenerous, who, alone intent
To bless himself, from fordid parents buys
The loathing virgin, in eternal care,
Well merited, conlume his nights and days:
Let barbarous nations, whose inhuman love
Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel,
Let eastern tyrants, from the light of Heaven
Seclude their bofom í laves, meanly posless'd
Of

mere, lifeless, violated form:
While those, whom love cements in holy faith,

And