Green covert, hail! for through the varying year

No hours so sweet, no scene to him so dear.

v. 65.

Scenery....full of life, and inspiring contemplation.

Here Wisdom's placid eye delighted sees

His frequent intervals of lonely ease,

And with one ray his infant soul inspires,
Just kindling there her never-dying fires,
Whence solitude derives peculiar charms,
And heaven-directed thought his bosom warms.
Just where the parting bough's light shadows play,
Scarce in the shade, nor in the scorching day,
Stretch'd on the turf he lies, a peopled bed,
Where swarming insects creep around his head.
The small dust-colour'd beetle climbs with pain
O'er the smooth plantain-leaf, a spacious plain!
Thence higher still, by countless steps convey'd,
He gains the summit of a shiv'ring blade,
And flirts his filmy wings, and looks around,
Exulting in his distance from the ground.
The tender speckled moth here dancing seen,
The vaulting grasshopper of glossy green,

The Sky-lark.

And all prolific Summer's sporting train,
Their little lives by various pow'rs sustain.
But what can unassisted vision do?

What, but recoil where most it would pursue;
His patient gaze but finish with a sigh,

When Music waking speaks the sky-lark nigh!
Just starting from the corn, he cheerly sings,
And trusts with conscious pride his downy wings;

Still louder breathes, and in the face of day

Mounts up,

Close to his

and calls on Giles to mark his way.

eyes his hat he instant bends,

And forms a friendly telescope, that lends
Just aid enough to dull the glaring light,
And place the wand'ring bird before his sight,
That oft beneath a light cloud sweeps along,
Lost for a while, yet pours the varied song:
The eye still follows, and the cloud moves by,
Again he stretches up the clear blue sky;

v. 83.