EPISTLES DESCRIPTIVE, &c.
The garden tribes that gladlier grew
While cherish'd by your fostering view,
No more resume their wonted hues,
No more their wonted sweets diffuse.
Who first will spy the swallow's wing,
Or hear the cuckoo greet the Spring?
Unmark'd shall then th' assiduous dove
With ruffling plumage urge his love;
Unnoted, though in lengthen'd strain,
The bashful nightingale complain!
O'er the broad down who then delight,
Led by the lapwing's devious flight,
To see her run and hear her cry,
Most clamorous when least danger 's nigh?
Who listless now will sauntering stay
Where rustics spread th' unwither'd hay,
And o'er the field survey askance
The wavy vapor quivering dance?
Or sunk supine with musing eye
Listen the hum of noon-day fly?
Or watch the bee from bell to bell
Where shelter'd lilies edge the dell?
Or mid the sultry heat reclin'd
Beneath the poplar woo the wind,
While to the lightest air that strays
Each leaf its hoary side displays?
Who, drawn by Nature's varying face, O'er heaven the gathering tempest trace ?4 Or, in the rear of sunny rain,
Admire the wide bow's gorgeous train ;
Till blending all its tints decay,
And the dim'd vision fleets away
In misty streams of ruddy glow
That cast an amber shine below,
And melting into ether blue
The freshen'd verdure gild anew?
Who now ascend the upland lawn
When Morning tines the kindling dawn, >6
To view the goss'mer pearl'd with dew
That tremulous shoots each glistering hue ?
Or mark the clouds in liveries gay
Surround the radiant orb of day?
Who, when his amplest course is run,
Wistful pursue the sinking sun ?
To common eyes he vainly shines,
Unheeded rises, or declines !
In vain, with saffron light o'erspread,
Yon summit lifts its verdant head,_bo
Discovering ev'ry whiten'd cote
And coppice, clear to eye remote;
While down the steep each loftier oak,
Outbraving still the woodman's stroke,
Detains, athwart th' impurpling haze,
The golden glance of westering rays.
The rook-lov'd groves and grange between,
Dark hedge-row elms with meadows green,
The grey church peeping half through trees,
Slopes waving corn as list the breeze,
The podding bean-field striped with balks,]
The hurdled sheep-fold, hoof-trod walks,
The road that winds aslant the down,
The skirting furze-brake, fallow brown,
The wind-mill's scarcely circling vane,
The villager's returning wain,
The orient window's crimson blaze
That flares obtrusive on the gaze,
heifer's echoing low]
The
eager
Far from her calf compell'd to go,
From the tall ash the throstle's lay
That bids farewell to lingering day,
The dale's blue smokes that curling rise,
The plodding hind that homeward hies,
The stilly hum from glimmering woods,
The lulling lapse of distant floods,]
The whitening mist that winding spreads
As winds the brook adown the meads,
The plank and rail that bridge the stream,
The rising full-moon's umber'd gleam, go.
Twixt severing clouds that richly dight
Let gradual forth her brightening light,
No more the onward foot beguile
Where pollards rude protect the stile.
Whose look now scans the dusky sphere.
To note successive stars appear?
Who now the dawning flush descries
That upward streams o'er northern skies;
Or the wan meteor's lurid light
That headlong trailing mocks the sight
Midst the lush grass who now require
The glow-worm's ineffectual fire ?
Or catch the bells from distant vale,
That load by fits the freshening gale,
Till flurrying from her ivied spray
The moping owl rewings her way?]
When Autumn sere the copse invades]
No more you haunt the woodland glades,
To eye the change from bough to bough;
Or eddying leaf descending slow, Ho
That, lighting near her calm retreat,
Prompts the shy hare to shift her seat ;
Or peering squirrel nimbly glean
Each nut that hung before unseen;
Or flitting down from thistle born;
Or glossy haw that crowds the thorn,]
Whence oft in saws observers old
Portend the length of winter's cold.
Wak'd by the flail's redoubling sound,
When spangling frost o'ercrisps the ground, 20
No more forego bewildering sleep
To climb with Health yon airy steep.
When deepening snows oppress the plain
The birds no more their boon obtain;
The red-breast hovering round your
No more his stated mess implores
Where all that needed found relief,
No tearful eye laments their grief;
No lenient hand dispels their pain;
Fainting they sue, yet sue in vain.
But though the scenes you now deplore
With heart and eye be your's no more;
Though now each long known object seen
Unreal as the morning's dream,
You still with retrospective glance,
Or rapt in some poetic transe,
At will may ev'ry charm renew;
Each smiling prospect still review:
Through memory's power and fancy's aid
The pictur'd phantoms ne'er shall fade.
And, oh! where e'er your footsteps roam,
Where e'er you fix your future home,
May joys attending crown the past,
And heaven's best mansion be your last.
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