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SEA STORM.

Thomson,

BUT chief at sea, whose every flexile wave
Obeys the blast, the aërial tumult swells;
In the dread ocean undulating wide,
Beneath the radiant line that girds the globe,
The circling whirlwind, whirl'd from point to point,
And dire tornado, reign. Amid the heavens
Falsely serene, deep in a cloudy speck,
Compress'd, the mighty tempest brooding dwells,
Of no regard, save to the skilful eye.
Fiery and foul, the small prognostic hangs
Aloft, or on the promontory's brow
Musters its force. A faint, deceitful calm.
A fluttering gale, the demon sends before
To tempt the spreading sail, then down at once,
Precipitant, descends a mingled mass

Of roaring winds, and flame, and rushing floods.
In wild amazement fixt, the sailor stands.
Art is too slow: by rapid fate oppress'd,

His broad-wing'd vessel drinks the whelming tide,
Hid in the bosom of the dark abyss.

Increasing still the terrors of the storm,

His jaws horrific arm'd with threefold fate,

Here dwells the direful shark, who rushing, cuts the flood

Swift as the gale can bear the ship along.

SUMMER-SUNSET.

Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees,
Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds
Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train,

In all their pomp, attend his sitting throne.
Air, earth, and ocean, smile immense. And now,
As if his weary chariot sought the bowers
Of Amphitrite and her tending nymphs,
(So Grecian fable sang) he dips his orb ;
Now half immers'd; and now a golden curve;
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.

AUTUMN.

Thomson.

CROWN'D with the sickle, and the wheaten sheaf,
Blithe Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on. Whate'er the wintry frost
Nitrous prepar'd; the various-blossom'd Spring
Put in white promise forth, and summer-suns
Concocted strong, rush boundless now, to view,
Full, perfect all, and swell the glorious theme.
When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days,
And Libra weighs, in equal scales, the year;
From heaven's high cope, the fierce effulgence
shook,

Of parting Summer, a serener blue,

With golden light enliven'd, wide invests

The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise,
Sweet-beam'd, and shedding oft through lucid
clouds,

A pleasing calm, while broad and brown, below,
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:
A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air

Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky,

The clouds fly different, and the sudden sun,
By fits, effulgent gilds the illumin'd field,
And black, by fits, the shadows sweep along.
A gaily checker'd, heart-expanding sight,
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded, tossing in a flood of corn.

TO AUTUMN.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom'd friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless

Keats.

With fruit, the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples, the mossed cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core,
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel nuts
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee, oft amid thy store?
Sometimes, whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep
Drowsy with fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? aye, where are they?

Think not of them; thou hast thy music too;
While barred clouds bloom the soft dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue:
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows borne aloft,

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full grown lambs bleat loud from hilly bourn;
Hedge crickets sing; and now with treble soft,
The red-breast whistles from a garden croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

AUTUMNAL STORM.

Stawell's Georgics of Virgil.

WHY sing of Autumn and its stormy stars, Which add new labours to the farmer's cares; When heats relent, and days are shorter grown, Or falls the spring in loaded torrents down.

When the spiked corn now bristles o'er the plain,
And milk, on verdant stems, swells out the grain;
Oft when the farmer, with regardful fear,

Has call'd the sickle to the ripen'd ear,
And cut the barley drooping in his hand,
While dry the stalk and yellow look'd the land,
I've seen the winds in madden'd fury meet,
Whirl the full harvest from its rooted seat;
Light stems and stubbles tost in eddies round,
Till the black tempest blacken'd all the ground.
Oft too, the floods in lawless deluge rise,
Gathering immensely from the watery skies,
And clouds embodied brood along the main,
To load the tempest with their dismal rain.
Down pour the heavens; the elemental fray,
The toils of ox and man has swept away;
Ditches o'erflow, the swelling rivers roar,
And ocean's surge boils fretting to the shore.
The Almighty, wrapt in deepest night, retires
To hurl from flaming hand his forky fires,
And earth astonish'd as the thunders roll,
Trembles convulsive to her utmost pole.
The beasts have fled; through all the world appear
Mortals made lowly by submissive fear.

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