The Praises of Industry-Description of Reaping.
The boat, light-skimming, stretch'd its oary wings;
While deep the various voice of fervent toil
From bank to bank increas'd; whence ribb'd with oak,
To bear the British Thunder, black, and bold,
The roaring vessel rush'd into the main.
Then too the pillar'd dome, magnific, heav'd
Its ample roof; and Luxury within
Pour'd out her glittering stores: the canvas smooth,
With glowing life protuberant, to the view
Embodied rose ; the statue seem'd to breathe,
And soften into flesh, beneath the touch
Of forming art, imagination-flush'd.
All is the gift of INDUSTRY; whate'er
Exalts, embellishes, and renders life
Delightful. Pensive Winter cheer'd by him
Sits at the social fire, and happy hears
Th' excluded tempest idly rave along;
His hardened fingers deck the gaudy Spring;
Without him Summer were an arid waste;
Nor to th' Autumnal months could thus transmit
Those full, mature, immeasurable stores,
That, waving round, recall my wandering song.
Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky,
And, unperceiv'd, unfolds the spreading day;
Before the ripened field the reapers stand,
In fair array; each by the lass he loves;
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate
By nameless gentle offices her toil.
At once they stoop and swell the lusty sheaves;
While through their cheerful band, the rural talk,
The rural scandal, and the rural jest,
Fly harmless; to deceive the tedious time,
And steal unfelt the sultry hours away.
Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks;
And, conscious, glancing oft on every side
His sated eye, feels his heart heave with joy.
The gleaners spread around, and here and there, 165
Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick.
Be not too narrow, husbandmen; but fling
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth,
The liberal handful. Think, oh grateful think!
How good the God of Harvest is to you;
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields;
kind
While these unhappy partners of your
Wide-hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole. The various turns
Story of Palemon and Lavinia.-Lavinia described.
Of fortune ponder; that your sons may want
What now, with hard reluctance, faint, ye give.
The lovely young LAVINIA once had friends,
And Fortune smil'd, deceitful, on her birth;
For, in her helpless years deprived of all,
Of every stay, save Innocence and HEAVEN,
She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor, liv'd in a cottage, far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale;
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty conceal'd.
Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy passion and low-minded pride:
Almost on Nature's common bounty fed;
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose,
Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning rose,
When the dew wets its leaves; unstain'd, and pure,
As is the lily, or the mountain snow.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers:
Or when the mournful tale her mother told,
Of what her faithless fortune promis'd once,
Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy star
Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace
Sat fair-proportion'd on her polish'd limbs,
Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is when unadorn'd adorn'd the most.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,
Recluse amid the close-embowering woods.
As in the hollow breast of Appenine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,
A myrtle rises, far from human eye,
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild ;
So flourish'd blooming, and unseen by all,
The sweet LAVINIA; till, at length, compell'd
By strong Necessity's supreme command,
With smiling patience in her looks, she went
To glean PALEMON's fields. The pride of swains
PALEMON was, the generous and the rich;
Who led the rural life in all its joy
And elegance, such as Arcadian song
The Pleasures of a virtuous Passion.
Transmits from ancient uncorrupted times;
When tyrant custom had not shackled Man,
But free to follow Nature was the mode.
He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes
Amusing, chanc'd beside his reaper-train
To walk, when poor LAVINIA drew his eye;
Unconscious of her power, and turning quick
With unaffected blushes from his gaze:
He saw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd.
That very moment love and chaste desire
Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown;
For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn,
Should his heart own a gleaner in the field;
And thus in secret to his soul he sigh'd:
"What pity! that so delicate a form,
By beauty kindled, where enlivening sense
"And more than vulgar goodness seem to dwell, "Should be devoted to the rude embrace
"Of some indecent clown! She looks, methinks,
"Of old ACASTO's line; and to my mind
"Recalls that patron of my happy life,
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