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

Of uncorrupted Man, nor blush'd to see
The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam;
For their light slumbers gently fum'd away;
And up they rose as vigorous as the sun,
Or to the culture of the willing glebe,

Or to the cheerful tendance of the flock.

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Meantime the song went round; and dance and sport, Wisdom and friendly talk, succesive, stole

Their hours away. While in the rosy

vale

Love breath'd his infant sighs, from anguish free,

And full replete with bliss; save the sweet pain,
That, inly thrilling, but exalts it more.

Nor yet injurious act, nor surly deed,

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Was known among those happy sons of Heaven; 255 For reason and benevolence were law.

Harmonious Nature too look'd smiling on;

Clear shone the skies, cool'd with eternal gales,
And balmy spirit all. The youthful sun
Shot his best rays, and still the gracious clouds
Drop'd fatness down; as o'er the swelling mead,
The herds and flocks, commixing, play'd secure.
This when, emergent from the gloomy wood,
The glaring lion saw, his horrid heart

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The Season described as it affects the various parts of Nature

Was meekened, and he join'd his sullen joy;
For music held the whole in perfect peace;

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Soft sigh'd the flute; the tender voice was heard,
Warbling the varied heart; the woodlands round
Appli'd their quire; and winds and waters fiow'd

In consonance.

Such were those prime of days. 270

But now those white unblemished manners, whence The fabling poets took their golden age,

Are found no more amid these iron times,

These dregs of life! Now the distemper'd mind
Has lost that concord of harmonious powers,
Which forms the soul of happiness; and all

Is off the poise within: the passions all

Have burst their bounds; and reason half extinct,

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Or impotent, or else approving, sees

The foul disorder. Senseless, and deform'd,

Convulsive anger storms at large; or pale,

And silent, settles into fell revenge.

Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Desponding fear, of feeble fancies full,
Weak and unmanly, loosens every power.
Ev'n love itself is bitterness of soul,

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

A pensive anguish pining at the heart;
Or, sunk to sordid interest, feels no more
That noble wish, that never-cloy'd desire,
Which, selfish joy disdaining, seeks alone
To bless the dearer object of its flame.
Hope sickens with extravagance; and grief,
Of life impatient, into madness swells,
Or in dead silence wastes the weeping hours.
These, and a thousand mixt emotions more,

From ever-changing views of good and ill,

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Form'd infinitely various, vex the mind

With endless storm: whence, deeply rankling, grows The partial thought, a listless unconcern,

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Cold, and averting from our neighbour's good;

Then dark disgust, and hatred, winding wiles,

Coward deceit, and ruffian violence :

At last, extinct each social feeling, fell,

And joyless inhumanity pervades

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And petrifies the heart. Nature disturb'd

Is deem'd, vindictive, to have chang'd her course.
Hence, in old dusky time, a deluge came;
When the deep-cleft disparting orb, that arch'd
The central waters round, impetuous rush'd,

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

With universal burst, into the gulph;

And o'er the high-pil'd hills of fractur'd earth
Wide dash'd the waves, in undulation vast;
Till, from the centre to the streaming clouds,
A shoreless ocean tumbled round the globe.

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The Seasons since have, with severer sway, Oppress'd a broken world: the Winter keen Shook forth his waste of snows; and Summer shot His pestilential heats. Great Spring, before Green'd all the year; and fruits and blossoms blush'd, In social sweetness, on the self-same bough.

Pure was the temperate air; an even calm

Perpetual reign'd, save what the zephyrs bland

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Breath'd o'er the blue expanse; for then nor storms
Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to rage;
Sound slept the waters; no sulphureous glooms
Swell'd in the sky, and sent the lightning forth;
While sickly damps, and cold autumnal fogs,
Hung not, relaxing, on the springs of life.
But now, of turbid elements the sport,
From clear to cloudy tost, from hot to cold,
And dry to moist, with inward-eating change,

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

Our drooping days are dwindled down to nought,
Their period finish'd ere 't is well begun.

And yet the wholesome herb neglected dies;
Though with the pure exhilarating soul
Of nutriment and health, and vital powers,
Beyond the search of art, 't is copious blest.
For, with hot ravine fir'd, ensanguin'd Man
Is now become the lion of the plain,

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And worse. The wolf, who from the nightly fold
Fierce drags the bleating prey, ne'er drunk her milk
Nor wore her warming fleece: nor has the steer,
At whose strong chest the deadly tyger hangs,
E'er plow'd for him. They too are temper'd high, 345
With hunger stung, and wild necessity;

Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast.

But Man, whom Nature form'd of milder clay,

With every kind emotion in his heart,

And taught alone to weep; while from her lap

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She pours ten thousand delicacies, herbs,

And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain

Or beams that gave them birth: shall he, fair form! Who wears sweet smiles, and looks erect on Heaven,

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