WHEN day declining sheds a milder gleam,
What time the May-fly haunts the pool or stream;
When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,
What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed ;)
Then be the hour to steal adown the vale,
And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's tale ;]
To hear the clamorous curlew call his mate,
Or the soft quail his tender pain relate;
To see the swallow sweep the darkʼning plain
Belated, to support her infant train;
To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring
Dash round the steeple, unsubdu'd of wing:
Amusive birds!—say where your hid retreat
When the frost rages and the tempests beat?
Epist. VII. EPISTLES DESCRIPTIVE, &c.
Whence your return, by such nice instinct led
When Spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head
Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride,
The GOD OF NATURE is your secret guide!
While deep'ning shades obscure the face of day
To yonder bench leaf-shelter'd let us stray,]
Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,
And all the fading landscape sinks in night;]
To hear the drowsy dor come brushing by
With buzzing wing, or the shrill cricket cry;
To see the feeding bat glance through the wood;]
To catch the distant falling of the flood;
While o'er the cliff th' awaken'd churn-owl hung
Through the still gloom protracts his chattering
song;
While high in air and pois'd upon his wings,
Unseen, the soft-enamor'd woodlark sings: 30
These, NATURE's works, the curious mind employ,
Inspire a soothing melancholy joy:
As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain
Steals o'er each cheek, and thrills the creeping vein!
Each rural sight, each sound, each smell com-
bine;
The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine;
The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,]
Or cottage-chimney smoaking through the trees.
The chilling night-dews fall-away, retire;
For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire!
Thus, ere night's veil had half obscur❜d the sky,
Th' impatient damsel hung her lamp on high:
True to the signal, by love's meteor led,
Leander hasten'd to his Hero's bed.
BY THE REV. GERALD FITZGERALD.
THE feather'd game that haunt the hoary plains,
Where ice-bound winter hangs in chrystal chains]
The mimic thunder of the deep-mouth'd gun]
By lightning usher'd and by death outrun,
The spaniel springing on the new-fall'n prey,
The friend attendant and the spirits gay;
These are the scenes which lur'd my earliest days,
And scenes like these continue still to please.
Oft when I've seen the new-fledg'd morn arise,
And spread its pinions to the polar skies,
Th' expanded air with gelid fragrance fan,
Brace the slack nerves and animate the man:
Swift from the college, and from cares I flew,
(For studious cares solicit something new)
From tinkling bells that wake the truant's fears,
And letter'd trophies of three thousand years;
Through length'ning streets with sanguine hopes I
The fatal tube depending at my side;
No busy vender dins with clam'rous call,T
No rattling carriage drives me to the wall; 20
The close-compacted shops, their commerce laid,
In silence frown like mansions of the dead-
Save, where the sooty-shrouded wretch cries "Sweep,"
Or drowsy watchman stalks in broken sleep,]
'Scap'd from the hot-brain'd youth of midnight fame,
Whose mirth is mischief, and whose glory shame―
Save, that from yonder stew the batter'd beau,
With tott'ring steps, comes reeling to and fro—
Mark, how the live-long revels of the night
Stare in his face, and stupify his sight!] 36
Mark the loose frame, yet impotently bold,
'Twixt man and beast, divided empire hold !—
Amphibious wretch! the prey of passion's tide,
The wreck of riot, and the mock of pride.
But we, my Friend, with aims far diff'rent born,
Seek the fair fields, and court the blushing morn;
With sturdy sinews brush the frozen snow
While crimson colors on our faces glow.
Since life is short, prolong it while we can,
And vindicate the ways of health to man. 40
To yonder vales that spread beneath the hills, Where MILTOWN river winds with murm'ring rills,
|