The Season described as it affects the various parts of Nature.

From every cranny suffocated falls:

Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust

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Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe:

Or, when th' envenom'd leaf begins to curl,
With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest;
Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill,
The little trooping birds unwisely scares.

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Be patient, swains; these cruel-seeming winds Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repress'd Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharg'd with rain, That o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne,

In endless train would quench the summer-blaze, 140
And, cheerless, drown the crude unripened year.
The North-east spends his rage; he now shut up
Within his iron cave, th' effusive South

Warms the wide air; and o'er the void of heaven
Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent. 145
At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining ether; but by swift degrees,
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails
Along the loaded sky, and, mingling deep,
Sits on th' horizon round a settled gloom:
Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed,

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The Season described as it affects the various parts of Nature.

Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,

And full of every hope and every joy,

The wish of Nature. Gradual sinks the breeze

Into a perfect calm; that not a breath

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Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves
Of aspin tall. Th' uncurling floods, diffus'd
In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all,
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and mute-imploring eye
The falling verdure. Hush'd in short suspense,
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;
And wait th' approaching sign to strike, at once,
Into the general choir. Ev'n mountains, vales,
And forests seem, impatient, to demand
The promis'd sweetness. Man superior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise,

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And looking lively gratitude. At last,

The clouds consign their treasures to the fields;
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool

The Season described as it affects the various parts of Nature.

Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,
In large effusion, o'er the freshened world.

The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard,
By such as wander through the forest walks,
Beneath th' umbrageous multitude of leaves.

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But who can hold the shade, while Heaven descends In universal bounty, shedding herbs,

And fruits, and flowers, on Nature's ample lap?

Swift fancy fir'd anticipates their growth;

And, while the milky nutriment distils,

Beholds the kindling country colour round.

Thus all day long the full-distended clouds

Indulge their genial stores, and well-shower'd earth
Is deep enrich'd with vegetable life;

Till, in the western sky, the downward sun
Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush

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Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam.

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The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes

'Th' illumin'd mountain, through the forest streams,
Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,
Far smoking o'er th' interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.

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The Season described as it affects the various parts of Nature.

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Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around; Full swell the woods; their every music wakes, Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks Increas'd, the distant bleatings of the hills, And hollow lows responsive from the vales, Whence blending all the sweetened zephyr springs. Meantime refracted from yon eastern cloud, Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow Shoots up immense; and every hue unfolds, In fair proportion, running from the red, To where the violet fades into the sky.

Here, awful NEWTON! the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting on the sun, thy showery prism;
And to the sage-instructed eye unfold

The various twine of light, by thee disclos'd
From the white mingling maze. Not so the boy;
He wondering views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs

To catch the falling glory; but amaz'd
Beholds th' amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds;

A softened shade, and saturated earth
Awaits the morning-beam; to give to light,

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The Season described as it affects the various parts of Nature.

Rais'd through ten thousand different plastic tubes,
The balmy treasures of the former day.

Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild,
O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power
Of botanist to number up their tribes:
Whether he steals along the lonely dale,

In silent search; or through the forest, rank
With what the dull incurious weeds account,

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Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain-rock, Fir'd by the nodding verdure of its brow.

With such a liberal hand has Nature flung

Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds, 230 Innumerous mix'd them with the nursing mould,

The moistening current, and prolific rain.

But who their virtues can declare? who pierce,

With vision pure, into these secret stores
Of health, and life, and joy? the food of Man,
While yet he liv'd in innocence, and told
A length of golden years; unflesh'd in blood,
A stranger to the savage arts of life,
Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease;
The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world.

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The first fresh dawn then wak'd the gladdened race