A U T U M N.

CROWN'D with the fickle and the wheaten fheaf,
While AUTUMN, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on; the Doric reed once more,
Well pleas'd, I tune. Whate'er the Wintry frost
Nitrous prepar’d; the various-blossom'd Spring
Put in white promise forth; and Summer suns
Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view,
Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme.

Onslow! the Muse, ambitious of thy name,
To grace, inspire, and dignify her song,
Would from the Public Voice thy gentle car
A while engage. Thy noble cares she knows,
The patriot virtues that diftend thy thought,
Spread on thy front, and in thy bofom glow;
While listening senates hang upon thy tongue,
Devolving thro’ the maze of eloquence
A roll of periods sweeter than her song.

But she too pants for public virtue, she,
Tho' weak of power, yet strong in ardent will, ,
Whene'er her country rushes on her heart
Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries
To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame.

When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days,
And Libra weighs in equal scales the year;
From heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence shook
Of parting Summer, a serener blue,
With golden light enlivened, wide invests
The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise,
Sweet-beam'd, and shedding oft thro' lucid clouds
A pleasing calm ; while broad, and brown, below
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, filent, deep, they stand ; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain :
A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;
The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By fits effulgent gilds th’ illumin’d field,
And black by fits the shadows sweep along.
A gaily-checker'd heart-expanding view,
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.

These are thy blessings, INDUSTRY! rough power!
Whom labour ftill attends, and sweat, and pain
Yet the kind source of every gentle art,
And all the soft civility of life :
Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast,
Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various seeds of art deep in the mind
Implanted, and profusely pour'd around
Materials infinite; but idle all.
Still unexerted, in th' unconscious breaft,
Slept the lethargic powers ; corruption still,
Voracious, swallowed what the liberal hand
Of bounty scatter'd o'er the favage year :
And still the sad barbarian, roving, mix'd
With beasts of prey; or for his acorn-meal
Fought the fierce tusky boar; a shivering wretch!
Aghaft, and comfortless, when the bleak north,
With Winter charg'd, let the mix'd tempest fly,
Hail, rain, and snow, and bitter-breathing frost:
Then to the shelter of the hut he fled;
And the wild season, fordid, pin’d away.
For home he had not ; home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,
Supporting and supported, polifh'd friends,