Uncomely courage, unbeseeming skill;
To spring the fence, to rein the prancing steed;
The cap, the whip, the masculine attire;
In which they roughen to the sense, and all
The winning softness of their sex is lost.
In them 'tis graceful to dissolve at woe;
With every motion, every word, to wave
Quick o'er the kindling cheek the ready blush;
And from the smallest violence to shrink
Unequal, then the loveliest in their fears;
And by this silent adulation, soft,
To their protection more engaging man.
O may their eyes no miserable sight,
Save weeping lovers, see! a nobler game,
Through Love's enchanting wiles pursued. yet fled,
In chase ambiguous. May their tender limbs
Float in the loose simplicity of dress!
And, fashion'd all to harmony, alone
Know they to seize the captivated soul,
In rapture warbled from love-breathing lips;
To teach the lute to languish; with smooth step,
Disclosing motion in its every charm,

To swim along, and swell the mazy dance;
To train the foliage o'er the snowy lawn;
To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful page;
To lend new flavour to the fruitful year,
And heighten Nature's dainties: in their race
To rear their graces into second life;
To give society its highest taste;

Well order'd home man's best delight to make;
And by submissive wisdom, modest skill,

With every gentle care-eluding art,
To raise the virtues, animate the bliss,
And sweeten all the toils of human life:
This be the female dignity and praise.

Ye swains, now hasten to the hazel bank;
Where, down yon dale, the wildly-winding brook
Falls hoarse from steep to steep. In close array,
Fit for the thickets and the tangling shrub,
Ye virgins come. For you their latest song
The woodlands raise; the clustering nuts for you
The lover finds amid the secret shade;
And, where they burnish on the topmost bough,
With active vigour crushes down the tree;
Or shakes them ripe from the resigning husk,
A glossy shower, and of an ardent brown,
As are the ringlets of Melinda's hair:
Melinda! form'd with every grace complete,
Yet these neglecting, above beauty wise,
And far transcending such a vulgar praise.

Hence from the busy joy-resounding fields, In cheerful errour, let us tread the maze Of Autumn, unconfin'd; and taste, reviv'd, The breath of orchard big with bending fruit. Obedient to the breeze and beating ray, From the deep-loaded bough a mellow shower Incessant melts away. The juicy year Lies, in a soft profusion, scatter'd round. A various sweetness swells the gentle race; By Nature's all-refining hand prepar'd; Of temper'd sun, and water, earth, and air, In ever-changing composition mixt. Such, falling frequent through the chiller night, The fragrant stores, the wide projected heaps Of apples, which the lusty-handed Year, Innumerous, o'er the blushing orchard shakes. A various spirit, fresh, delicious, keen, Dxells in their gelid pores; and, active, points The piercing cyder for the thirsty tongue: Thy native theme, and boon inspirer 100,

Phillips, Pomona's bard, the second thou
Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfetter'd verse,
With British freedom sing the British song:
How, from Silurian vats, high-sparkling wines
Foam in transparent floods; some strong, to cheer
The wintery revels of the labouring hind;
And tasteful some, to cool the summer hours.

In this glad season, while his sweetest beams
The Sun sheds equal o'er the meeken'd day;
Oh, lose me in the green delightful walks
Of, Doddington, thy seat, serene, and plain;
Where simple Nature reigns; and every view,
Diffusive, spreads the pure Dorsetian downs,
In boundless prospect: yonder shagg'd with wood,
Here rich with harvest, and there white with flocks!
Meantime the grandeur of thy lofty dome,
Far-splendid, seizes on the ravish'd eye.
New beauties rise with each revolving day;
New columns swell; and still the fresh Spring finds
New plants to quicken, and new groves to green
Full of thy genius all! the Muses' scat:
Where in the secret bower, and winding walk,
For virtuous Young and thee they twine the bay.
Here wandering oft, fir'd with the restless thirst
Of thy applause, I solitary court

Th' inspiring breeze: and meditate the book
Of Nature ever open: aiming thence,
Warm from the heart, to learn the moral song-
Here, as I steal along the sunny wall,
Where Autumn basks, with fruit empurpled deep,
My pleasing theme continual prompts my thought:
Presents the downy peach; the shining plumb;
The ruddy, fragrant nectarine; and dark,
Beneath his ample leaf, the luscious fig.
The vine too here her curling tendrils shoots;
Hangs out her clusters, glowing to the south;
And scarcely wishes for a warmer sky.

Turn we a moment Fancy's rapid flight
To vigorous soils, and climes of fair extent;
Where, by the potent Sun elated high,
The vineyard swells refulgent on the day;
Spreads o'er the vale; or up the mountain climbs,
Profuse; and drinks amid the sunny rocks,
From cliff to cliff increas'd, the heighten'd blaze.
Low bend the weighty boughs. The clusters clear,
Half through the foliage seen, or ardent flame,
Or shine transparent; while perfection breathes
White o'er the turgent film the living dew.
As thus they brighten with exalted juice,
Touch'd into flavour by the mingling ray;
The rural youth and virgins o'er the field,
Each fond for each to cull th' autumnal prine,
Exulting rove, and speak the vintage nigh.
Then comes the crushing swain; the country floats,
And foains unbounded with the mashy flood;
That by degrees fermented and retin'd,
Round the rais'd nations pours the cup of joy :
The claret smooth, red as the lip we press,
In sparkling fancy, while we drain the bowl;
The mellow-tasted Burgundy; and quick,
As is the wit it gives, the gay Champagne.

Now, by the cool declining year condens'd,
Descend the copious exhalations, check'd
As up the middle sky unseen they stole,
And roll the doubling fogs around the hill.
No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime,
Who pours a sweep of rivers from his sides,
And high between contending kingdoms rears
The rocky long division, fills the view
With great variety; but in a night

Where the Rhine loses his majestic force
In Belgian plains, won from the raging deep,
By diligence amazing, and the strong
Unconquerable hand of Liberty,

The stork-assembly meets; for many a day,
Consulting deep, and various, ere they take
Their arduous voyage through the liquid sky.
And now their route design'd, their leaders chose,
Their tribes adjusted, clean'd their vigorous wings;
And many a circle, many a short essay,
Wheel'd round and round, in congregation full
The figur'd flight ascends; and, riding high
Th' aerial billows, mixes with the clouds.

Or where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,
Boils round the naked melancholy isles
Of farthest Thule, and th' Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides;
Who can recount what transmigrations there
Are annual made? what nations come and go?
And how the living clouds on clouds arise?
Infinite wings! till all the plume-dark air
And rude resounding shore are one wild cry.
Here the plain harmless native his small flock,
And herd diminutive of many hues,
Tends on the little island's verdant swell,
The shepherd's sea-girt reign; or, to the rocks
Dire-clinging, gathers his ovarious food;
Or sweeps the fishy shore; or treasures up
The plumage, rising full, to form the bed
Of luxury. And here a while the Muse,
High hovering o'er the broad cerulean scene,
Sees Caledonia, in romantic view:
Her airy mountains, from the waving main,
Invested with a keen diffusive sky,
Breathing the soul acute; her forests huge,
Incult, robust, and tall, by Nature's hand
Planted of old; her azure lakes between,
Pour'd out extensive, and of watery wealth
Full; winding deep, and green, her fertile vales;
With many a cool translucent brimming flood
Wash'd lovely from the Tweed (pure parent stream,
Whose pastoral bauks first heard my Doric reed,
With, sylvan Jed, thy tributary brook)

To where the north-inflated tempest foains
O'er Orca's or Betubium's highest peak:
Nurse of a people, in misfortune's school
Train'd up to hardy deeds; soon visited
By Learning, when before the Gothic rage
She took her western flight. A manly race,
Of unsubmitting spirit, wise, and brave;
Who still through bleeding ages struggled hard,
(As well unhappy Wallace can attest,
Great patriot-hero! ill-requited chief!)
To hold a generous undiminish'd state;
Too much in vain! Hence of unequal bounds
Impatient, and by tempting glory borne
O'er every land, for every land their life
Has flow'd profuse, their piercing genius plann’d
And swell'd the pomp of peace their faithful toil,
As from their own clear north, in radiant streams,
Bright over Europe bursts the Boreal Morn.

Oh, is there not some patriot, in whose power
That best, that godlike luxury is plac'd,
Of blessing thousands, thousands yet unborn,
Through late posterity? some, large of soul,
To cheer dejected industry? to give
A double harvest to the pining swain?

And teach the labouring hind the sweets of toil?
How, by the fincst art, the native robe
To weave; how, white as flyperborean snow,

To form the lucid lawn; with venturous oar
How to dash wide the billow; nor look on,
Shamefully passive, while Batavian fleets
Defraud us of the glittering finny swarms,
That heave our friths, and crowd upon our shores;
How all-enlivening trade to rouse, and wing
The prosperous sail, from every growing port,
Uninjur'd, round the sea-encircled globe;
And thus, in soul united as in name,
Bid Britain reign the mistress of the deep?

Yes, there are such. And full on thee, Argyll,
Her hope, her stay, her darling, and her boast,
From her first patriots and her heroes sprung,
Thy fond imploring country turns her eye;
In thee, with all a mother's triumph, sees
Her every virtue, every grace combin'd,
Her genius, wisdom, her engaging turn,
Her pride of honour, and her courage try'd,
Calm, and intrepid, in the very throat
Of sulphurous war, on Tenier's dreadful field.
Nor less the palm of peace inwreathes thy brow:
For, powerful as thy sword, from thy rich tougue
Persuasion flows, and wins the high debate;
While mix'd in thee combine the charm of youth,
The force of manhood, and the depth of age.
Thee, Forbes, too, whom every worth attends,
As truth sincere, as weeping friendship kind,
Thee, truly generous, and in silence great,
Thy country feels through her reviving arts,
Plann'd by thy wisdom, by thy soul inform'd ;
And seldom has she known a friend like thee.
But see the fading many-colour'd 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 illumin'd wide, The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the Sun, And through their lucid veil his soften'd force Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time, For those whom Wisdom and whom Nature

charm,

[heard

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 sadden'd grove, where scarce is
One dying strain, to cheer the woodman's toil.
Haply some widow'd 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
Swell'd all the music of the swarming shades,
Robb'd 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 nought save chattering discord in their note.
O, let not, aim'd 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 chok'd, and matted with the dreary shower, The forest-walks, at every rising gale, Roll wide the wither'd waste, and whistle bleak. Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields; And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race Their sunny robes resign. Ev'n what remain'd Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree; And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around The desolated prospect thrills the soul.

He comes! he comes! in every breeze the power
Of philosophic Melancholy comes!
His near approach the sudden-starting tear,
The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air,
The soften'd feature, and the beating heart,
Pierc'd deep with many a virtuous pang, declare.
O'er all the soul his sacred influence breathes !
Inflames imagination; through the breast
Infuses every tenderness; and far
Beyond dim Earth exalts the swelling thought.
Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, such
As never mingled with the vulgar dream,
Crowd fast into the mind's creative eye.
As fast the correspondent passions rise,
As varied, and as high: devotion rais'd
To rapture, and divine astonishment;
The love of Nature unconfin'd, and, chief,
Of human race; the large ambitious wish,
To make them blest; the sigh for suffering worth
Lost in obscurity; the noble scorn

Of tyrant-pride; the fearless great resolve;
The wonder which the dying patriot draws,
Inspiring glory through remotest time;
Th' awaken'd throb for virtue, and for fame;
The sympathies of love, and friendship dear;
With all the social offspring of the heart.

Oh, bear me to vast embowering shades,
To twilight groves, and visionary vales;
To weeping grottoes, and prophetic glooms;
Where angel forms athwart the solemn dusk
Tremendous sweep, or seem to sweep along;
And voices more than human, through the void
Deep-sounding, seize th' enthusiastic ear!

Or is this gloom too much? Then lead, ye powers,
That o'er the garden and the rural seat
Preside, which shining through the cheerful land
In countless numbers blest Britannia sees;
O, lead me to the wide-extended walks,
The fair majestic paradise of Stowe1!
Not Persian Cyrus on Ionia's shore

E'er saw such sylvan scenes; such various art
By genius fir'd, such ardent genius tam'd
By cool judicious art; that, in the strife,
All-beauteous Nature fears to be outdone.
And there, O Pitt, thy country's early boast,
There let me sit beneath the shelter'd slopes,
Or in that temple' where, in future times,
Thou well shalt merit a distinguish'd name;
And, with thy converse blest, catch the last smiles
Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods.

The seat of the lord viscount Cobham. The temple of Virtue in Stowe-gardens.

While there with thee th' enchanted round I walk
The regulated wild, gay Fancy then
Will tread in thought the groves of Attic land;
Will from thy standard taste refine her own,
Correct her pencil to the purest truth
Of Nature, or, the unimpassion'd shades
Forsaking, raise it to the human mind.
Or if hereafter she, with juster hand,
Shall draw the tragic scene, instruct her thou,
To mark the varied movements of the heart,
What every decent character requires,
And every passion speaks: O, through her strain
Breathe thy pathetic eloquence! that moulds
Th' attentive senate, charms, persuades, exalts,
Of honest zeal the indignant lightning throws,
And shakes Corruption on her venal throne.
While thus we talk, and through Elysian vales
Delighted rove, perhaps a sigh escapes:
What pity, Cobham, thou thy verdant files
Of order'd trees shouldst here inglorious range,
Instead of squadrons flaming o'er the field,
And long embattled hosts! when the proud foe,
The faithless vain disturber of mankind,
Insulting Gaul, has rous'd the world to war;
When keen, once more, within their bounds to prese
Those polish'd robbers, those ambitious slaves,
The British youth would hail thy wise command,
Thy temper'd ardour, and thy veteran skill.

The western Sun withdraws the shorten'd day;
And humid Evening, gliding o'er the sky,
In her chill progress, to the ground condens'd
The vapours throws. Where creeping waters ooze,
Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind,
Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along

The dusky-mantled lawn. Mean-while the Moon Full orb'd, and breaking through the scatter'd

clouds,

Shows her broad visage in the crimson'd east.
Turn'd to the Sun direct, her spotted disk,
Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend,
And caverns deep, as optic tube descries,
A smaller Earth, gives us his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulian rides sublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild
O'er the sky'd mountain to the shadowy vale,
While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam,
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide

Of silver radiance, trembling round the world.

But when half blotted from the sky her light, Fainting, permits the starry fires to burn With keener lustre through the depth of Heaven; Or near extinct her deaden'd orb appears, And scarce appears, of sickly beamless white; Oft in this season, silent from the north A blaze of meteors shoots: ensweeping first The lower skies, they all at once converge High to the crown of Heaven, and all at once Relapsing quick as quickly reascend, And mix, and thwart, extinguish, and renew, All ether coursing in a maze of light.

From look to look, contagious through the crowd, The panic runs, and into wondrous shapes Th' appearance throws: armies in meet array, Throng'd with aërial spears and steeds of fire; Till the long lines of full-extended war In bleeding fight commix'd, the sanguine flood Rolls a broad slaughter o'er the plains of Heaven. As thus they scan the visionary scene,