That sinks you soft in elegance and ease; THE SPORTSMAN; SPANIEL; COVEY. Here the rude clamor of the sportsman's joy, The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn, Would tempt the Muse to sing the rural game : How in his mid-career the spaniel struck, Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose, Outstretched and finely sensible, draws full, Fearful and cautious, on the latent prey; As in the sun the circling covey bask Their varied plumes, and watchful, every way Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye. Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat Their idle wings, entangled more and more: Nor on the surges of the boundless air, Though borne triumphant, are they safe; the gun, Glanced just, and sudden, from the fowler's eye, O'ertakes their sounding pinions; and again, Immediate, brings them from the towering wing, Dead to the ground; or drives them wide-dispersed, Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind. POETRY REBUKES, NOT GLORIFIES, FOWLING AND THE CHASE, AS AMUSEMENTS. These are not subjects for the peaceful Muse, Nor will she stain with such her spotless song; Then most delighted, when she social sees The whole mixed animal creation round Alive and happy. T is not joy to her, This falsely-cheerful, barbarous game of death, This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth Awakes, impatient, with the gleaming morn: When beasts of prey retire, that all night long, Urged by necessity, had ranged the dark, As if their conscious ravage shunned the light, Ashamed. Not so the steady tyrant man, Who, with the thoughtless insolence of power Inflamed, beyond the most infuriate wrath Of the worst monster that e'er roamed the waste, For sport alone pursues the cruel chase, Amid the beamings of the gentle days. Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage, For hunger kindles you, and lawless want ; But lavish fed, in Nature's bounty rolled, To joy at anguish, and delight in blood, Is what your horrid bosoms never knew. Stretched o'er the stony heath; the stubble chapt; THE STAG-HUNT. VAIN EFFORTS OF THE QUARRY. — THE The stag too, singled from the herd, where long He ranged the branching monarch of the shades, Before the tempest drives. At first in speed He, sprightly, puts his faith; and, roused by fear, Gives all his swift, aerial soul to flight; Against the breeze he darts, that way the more To leave the lessening, murderous cry behind : Deception short! though fleeter than the winds Blown o'er the keen-aired mountain by the north, He bursts the thickets, glances through the glades, And plunges deep into the wildest wood; If slow, yet sure, adhesive to the track Hot-steaming, up behind him come again The inhuman rout, and from the shady depth Expel him, circling through his every shift. He sweeps the forest oft; and sobbing sees The glades, mild opening to the golden day; Where, in kind contest, with his butting friends He wont to struggle, or his loves enjoy. Oft in the full descending flood he tries To lose the scent, and lave his burning sides: Oft seeks the herd; the watchful herd, alarmed, With selfish care avoid a brother's woe. What shall he do? His once so vivid nerves, So full of buoyant spirit, now no more Inspire the course; but fainting, breathless toil, Sick, seizes on his heart: he stands at bay, And puts his last weak refuge in despair. The big round tears run down his dappled face; He groans in anguish; while the growling pack, Blood-happy, hang at his fair jutting chest, And mark his beauteous checkered sides with gore. THE LION, WOLF, OR BOAR HUNT MORE WORTHY. Of this enough. But if the sylvan youth, Whose fervent blood boils into violence, Must have the chase; behold, despising flight, CHASE OF THE FOX COMMENDED AND DESCRIBED ITS HEAD- These Britain knows not; give, ye Britons, then, Your sportive fury, pitiless, to pour Loose on the nightly robber of the fold; Him, from his craggy, winding haunts unearthed, Let all the thunder of the chase pursue. Throw the broad ditch behind you; o'er the hedge High bound, resistless; nor the deep morass Refuse, but through the shaking wilderness Pick your nice way; into the perilous flood Bear fearless, of the raging instinct full; And, as you ride the torrent, to the banks Your triumph sound sonorous, running round, From rock to rock, in circling echoes tossed; Then scale the mountains to their woody tops; Rush down the dangerous steep; and o'er the lawn, In fancy swallowing up the space between, Pour all your speed into the rapid game. For happy he who tops the wheeling chase; Has every maze evolved, and every guile Disclosed; who knows the merits of the pack ; Who saw the villain seized, and dying hard, Without complaint, though by a hundred mouths Relentless torn. O glorious he, beyond His daring peers! when the retreating horn Calls them to ghostly halls of gray renown, With woodland honors graced; the fox's fur Depending decent from the roof and spread Round the drear walls, with antic figures fierce, The stag's large front: he then is loudest heard, When the night staggers with severer toils, With feats Thessalian centaurs never knew ; And their repeated wonders shake the dome. THE FOX-HUNT FEAST; THE SIRLOIN; POT-PIES; PUNCH; OLD OCTOBER ALE; WHIST; BACK-GAMMON ; SMOKING. But first the fuelled chimney blazes wide; The tankards foam; and the strong table groans Beneath the smoking sirloin, stretched immense From side to side, in which, with desperate knife, They deep incision make, and talk the while Of England's glory, ne'er to be defaced, While hence they borrow vigor or amain Into the pasty plunged, at intervals, If stomach keen can intervals allow, Relating all the glories of the chase. Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst Produce the mighty bowl; the mighty bowl, Swelled high with fiery juice, steams liberal round A potent gale; delicious as the breath Of Maia to the love-sick shepherdess, On violets diffused, while soft she hears THE DRINKING BOUT. ALL DRUNK BUT THE REVEREND DOC- At last, these puling idlenesses laid The impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart; [hounds As when the tempest, that has vexed the deep : Laments the weakness of these latter times. WOMAN'S SPHERE; THE CHASE UNFIT.- WOMAN'S TRUE CHARMS AND PROPER ACCOMPLISHMENTS. DANCING; DRAWING ; NEEDLE-WORK; MUSIC; MAKING PRESERVES; EDUCATION OF CHILDREN; THE RENDERING OF HOME VIRTUOUS AND HAPPY. But if the rougher sex by this fierce sport Is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy Eer stain the bosom of the British fair. To spring the fence, to rein the prancing steed; To their protection more engaging man. In rapture warbled from love-breathing lips; To teach the lute to languish; with smooth step, To swim along, and swell the mazy dance; GATHERING OF HAZEL-NUTS. MELINDA. 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 vigor 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! formed with every grace complete ; Yet these neglecting, above beauty wise, And far transcending such a vulgar praise. THE ORCHARD. — GATHERING OF FRUIT. PEARS; APPLES; Hence from the busy, joy-resounding fields, The breath of orchard big with bending fruit; Obedient to the breeze and beating ray, THE SEAT OF MR. BUBB DODINGTON, IN AUTUMN, DESCRIBED. In this glad season, while his sweetest beams The sun sheds equal o'er the meekened day, O lose me in the green delightful walks, Of, Dodington, thy seat, serene and plain; Where simple Nature reigns; and every view, Diffusive, spreads the pure Dorsetian downs, In boundless prospect; yonder shagged with wood, Here rich with harvest, and there white with flocks! Meantime the grandeur of thy lofty dome, Far-splendid, seizes on the ravished 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' seat: Where in the secret bower, and winding walk, For virtuous Young and thee they twine the bay. Here wandering oft, fired with the restless thirst Of thy applause, I solitary court The 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 plum, 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. THE VINEYARD AND VINTAGE. WINE-MAKING.— CLARET; BURGUNDY; CHAMPAGNE. Turn we a moment Faney's rapid flight To vigorous soils, and climes of fair extent; Where, by the potent sun elated high, AUTUMN FOGS. THE SUN THROUGH A FOG. CHAOS. Now, by the cool declining year condensed, Descend the copious exhalations, checked As up the middle sky unseen they stole, And roll the doubling fogs around the hill. No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime, Which pours a sweep of rivers from its sides, And high between contending kingdoms rears The rocky long division, fills the view With great variety; but, in a night Of gathering vapor, from the baffled sense Sinks dark and dreary. Thence expanding far, The huge dusk, gradual, swallows up the plain : Vanish the woods; the dim-seen river seems Sullen and slow to roll the misty wave. E'en in the height of noon oppressed, the sun Sheds, weak and blunt, his wide-refracted ray : Whence glaring oft, with many a broadened orb, He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth, Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life Objects appear; and, 'wildered, o'er the waste The shepherd stalks gigantic. Till at last Wreathed dun around, in deeper circles still Successive closing, sits the general fog Unbounded o'er the world; and, mingling thick, A formless, gray confusion covers all. As when of old (so sung the Hebrew bard) Light, uncollected, through the chaos urged Its infant way; nor Order yet had drawn His lovely train from out the dubious gloom. THE CIRCUIT OF THE WATERS. SPRINGS.THEORY OF THEIR FORMATION BY CAPILLARY ATTRACTION REJECTED. These roving mists, that constant now begin To smoke along the hilly country, these With weightier rains, and melted Alpine snows, The mountain-cisterns fill, those ample stores Of water, scooped among the hollow rocks; [play, Whence gush the streams, the ceaseless fountains And their unfailing wealth the rivers draw. Or if, by blind ambition led astray, They must aspire, why should they sudden stop Among the broken mountain's rushy dells, The spoil of ages, would impervious choke RAPID SURVEY OF THE CHIEF MOUNTAINS OF THE WORLD. Say, then, where lurk the vast eternal springs, That, like creating Nature, lie concealed From mortal eye, yet with their lavish stores Refresh the globe, and all its joyous tribes! O thou pervading Genius, given to man To trace the secrets of the dark abyss, O lay the mountains bare! and wide display Their hidden structure to the astonished view! Strip from the branching Alps their piny load; The huge incumbrance of horrific woods From Asian Taurus, from Imaus stretched Athwart the roving Tartar's sullen bounds! Give opening Hemus to my searching eye, And high Olympus pouring many a stream; O from the sounding summits of the north, The Dofrine Hills, through Scandinavia rolled To furthest Lapland and the frozen main; From lofty Caucasus, far seen by those Who in the Caspian and black Euxine toil; From cold Riphæan rocks, which the wild Russ Believes the stony girdle of the world; And all the dreadful mountains, wrapt in storm, Whence wide Siberia draws her lonely floods; O sweep the eternal snows! Hung o'er the deep, That ever works beneath his sounding base, Bid Atlas, propping heaven, as poets feign, His subterranean wonders spread! Unveil The miny caverns, blazing on the day, Of Abyssinia's cloud-compelling cliffs, Amazing scene! Behold! the glooms disclose ; THE AUTUMNAL MIGRATION OF BIRDS. SWALLOWS. When Autumn scatters his departing gleams, Warned of approaching Winter, gathered, play The swallow-people; and tossed wide around, O'er the calm sky, in convolution swift, The feathered eddy floats; rejoicing once, Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire; In clusters clung, beneath the mouldering bank, And where, unpierced by frost, the cavern sweats. Or rather into warmer climes conveyed, With other kindred birds of season, there They twitter cheerful, till the vernal months Invite them welcome back: for, thronging, now Innumerous wings are in commotion all. MIGRATION OF THE STORK FROM HOLLAND. Where the Rhine loses his majestic force The stork-assembly meets; for many a day, And now, their route designed, their leaders chose, BIRDS OF THE ORKNEYS AND HEBRIDES, AND THEIR MIGRA- Or where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls, SHETLAND HERDS AND FLOCKS. EGG AND EIDER-DOWN 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. BIRD'S-EYE DESCRIPTION OF SCOTLAND. TWEED.-JED. 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, Poured out extensive, and of watery wealth Full; winding deep, and green, her fertile vales; With many a cool, translucent, brimming flood Washed lovely, from the Tweed, pure parent stream, Whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed, With, sylvan Jed, thy tributary brook, To where the north-inflated tempest foams O'er Orca's or Betubium's highest peak: THE SCOTCH PEOPLE. WALLACE. THE AURORA BOREALIS. Nurse of a people, in Misfortune's school Trained 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, undiminished 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 flowed profuse, their piercing genius planned, And swelled the pomp of peace their faithful toil : |