The clammy mildew; or, dry-blowing, breathe
Untimely frost; before whose baleful blast
The full-grown Spring through all her foliage shrinks
Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste.
For oft, engender'd by the hazy north,
Myriads on myriads, insect armies warp
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 involv'd in smoke, the latent foe
From every cranny suffocated falls:
Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust
Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe:
Or, when th' envenom'd leaf begins to curl,
With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest;
Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill,
The little trooping birds unwisely scares.
Be patient, swains: these cruel-seeming winds Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repress'd Those deep'ning clouds on clouds surcharg'd with rain That, o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne,
In endless train, would quench the summer blaze,
And, cheerless drown the crude unripen'd year.
The north-east spends his rage: he now shut up
Within his iron cave, th' effusive south
Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven
Breathes the big clouds with vernal show'rs distent
At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining ether; but by swift degrees,
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails
Along the loaded sky; and mingling deep,
Sits on th' horizon like a settled gloom:
Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed,
Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of ev'ry hope and ev'ry 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 aspin tall. Th' uncurling floods diffus'd
In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course,
'Tis 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 th' approaching sign to strike, at once,
Into the gen'ral choir. E'en mountains, vales,
And forests, seem impatient, to demand
The promis'd 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 show'r is scarce to patter heard,
By such as wander through the forest-walks,
Beneath th' umbrageous multitude of leaves.
But who can hold the shade, while heav'n descends
In universal bounty, shedding herbs,
And fruits and flow'rs, on nature's ample lap ?
Swift fancy fir'd anticipates their growth;
And, while the milky nutriment distils,
Beholds the kindling country colour round.
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
Of broken clouds, gay shifting to his beam.
The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes
Th' illumin'd mountain; through the forest streams, Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,
Far smoking o'er th' interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.
Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around.
Full swell the woods: their ev'ry music wakes,
Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increas'd, the distant bleatings of the hills
And 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 ev'ry hne 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 show'ry prism;
And, to the sage instructed eye, unfold
The various twine of light, by thee disclos'd
From the white mingling maze. Not so the boy:
He wond'ring views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amaz'd
Beholds th' amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away.
Still night succeeds,
A soften'd shade, and saturated earth
Awaits the morning beam, to give to light,
Rais'd through ten thousand diff'rent plastic tubes, The balmy treasures of the former day.
Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild,
O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the pow'r
Of botanist to number up their tribes:
Whether he steals along the lonely dale,
In silent search; or through the forest, rank
With what the dull incurious weeds account,
Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain rock, Fir'd by the nodding verdure of its brow,
With such a lib'ral hand has nature flung
Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds,
Innum❜rous mixed them with the nursing mould,
The moist'ning 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 liv'd in innocence, and told
A length of golden years, unflesh'd in blood;
A stranger to the savage arts of life,
Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease,
The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world
The first fresh dawn then wak'd the gladden'd race Of uncorrupted man, nor blush'd to see
The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam:
For their light slumbers gently fum'd away;
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
Their hours away. While in the rosy vale
Love breath'd 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,
Was known among those happy sons of heav'n;
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 :
Soft sigh'd the flute: the tender voice was heard,
Warbling the varied heart; the woodlands round
Applied their quire; and winds and waters flow'd
In consonance. Such were those prime of days.
But now those white unblemish'd manners, whence
The fabling poets took their golden age,
Are found no more amid these iron times,
These dregs of life! Now the distemper'd mind
Has lost that concord of harmonious pow'rs,
Which forms the soul of happiness; and all
Is off the poise within; the passions ali
Have burst their bounds; and reason, half-extinct,
Or impotent, or else approving, sees
The foul disorder. Senseless and deform'd,
Convulsive anger storms at large; or, pale
And silent, settles into fell revenge.
Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Desponding fear, of feeble fancies full,
Weak and unmanly, loosens ev'ry pow'r.
E'en love itself is bitterness of soul,
A pensive anguish, pining at the heart;
Or, sunk to sordid int'rests, feels no more
That noble wish, that never cloy'd desire,
Which, selfish joy disdaining, seeks alone
To bless the dearer object of its flame.
Hope sickens with extravagance; and grief,
Of life impatient, into madness swells.
Or in dead silence wastes the weeping hours.
These, and a thousand mix'd emotions more,
From ever-changing views of good and ill
Form'd infinitely various, vex the mind
With endless storm; whence, deeply-rankling, grows
The partial thought, a listless unconcern,
Cold and averting from our neighbour's good;
Then dark disgust, and hatred, winding wiles,
Coward deceit, and ruffian violence:
At last, extinct each social feeling, fell
And joyless inhumanity pervades
And petrifies the heart.
Is deem'd vindictive, to have chang'd her course.
Hence, in old dusky time a deluge came,
When the deep-cleft disparting orb, that arch'd
The central waters round, impetuous rush'd,
With universal burst, into the gulf;
And o'er the high-pil'd hills of fractur'd earth
Wide dash'd the waves in undulation vast;
Till, from the centre to the streaming clouds,
A shoreless ocean tumbled round the globe.
The seasons since have, with severer sway,
Oppress'd a broken world: the Winter keen
Shook forth his waste of snows; and Summer shot
His pestilential heats. Great Spring, before,
Green'd all the year, and fruits and blossoms blush'd
In social sweetness on the self same bough.
Pure was the temp'rate air: an even calm
Perpetual reign'd, save what the zephyrs bland
Breath'd o'er the blue expanse; for then nor storms
|
