Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimm'ring near? With him, sweet bard, may Fancy die, And Joy desert the blooming year. VIII. But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide Whose cold turf hides the buried friend. IX. And see, the fairy valleys fade, Dun Night has veil'd the solemn view; Yet once again, dear parted shade, Meek Nature's Child, again adieu. X. The genial meads assign'd to bless Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom; Their hinds, and shepherd-girls shall dress XI. Long, long, thy stone, and pointed clay, Oh! vales, and wild woods, shall He say, THE ARGUMENT. THE subject proposed. Inscribed to the countess of Hertford. The Season is described as it affects the various parts of Nature, ascending from the lower to the higher; with digressions arising from the subject. Its influence on inanimate Matter, on Vegetables, on brute Animals, and last on Man; concluding with a dissuasive from the wild and irregular passion of love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind. SPRING. COME, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come, And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts And see where surly Winter passes off, Deform the day delightless: so that scarce At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun, Forth fly the tepid airs; and unconfin'd, Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays. Joyous, th' impatient husbandman perceives Relenting Nature, and his lusty steers Drives from their stalls, to where the well-us'd plough Lies in the furrow, loosened from the frost. There, unrefusing, to the harness'd yoke They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil, Chear'd by the simple song and soaring lark. Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share The master leans, rentoves th' obstructing clay Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe.. White, thro' the neighbouring fields the sower stalks. |