A UTU M N.

CROWN'D with the fickle and the wheaten sheaf,
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-bloffom'd Spring
Put in white promise forth; and Summer funs
Concocted ftrong, rush boundless now to view,
Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme.
ONSLOW! the Mufe, ambitious of thy name,
To grace, infpire, and dignify her fong,
Would from the Public Voice thy gentle ear
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 liftening fenates hang upon thy tongue,
Devolving thro' the maze of eloquence
A roll of periods fweeter than her fong.

But she too pants for public virtue, she,

Tho' weak of power, yet ftrong in ardent will,
Whene'er her country rushes on her heart,
Affumes 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 ferener blue,

With golden light enlivened, wide invests
The happy world. Attemper'd funs arise,
Sweet-beam'd, and fhedding oft thro' lucid clouds
A pleafing calm; while broad, and brown, below
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, filent, deep, they ftand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:
A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air

Falls from its poife, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;
The clouds fly different; and the fudden fun
By fits effulgent gilds th' illumin'd field,
And black by fits the fhadows fweep along.
A gaily-checker'd heart-expanding view,
Far as the circling eye can fhoot around,
Unbounded toffing in a flood of corn.

These are thy bleffings, INDUSTRY! rough power!

Whom labour ftill attends, and fweat, and pain

Yet the kind fource of every gentle art,

And all the foft civility of life:

Raifer of human kind! by Nature caft,
Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various feeds of art deep in the mind
Implanted, and profufely pour'd around
Materials infinite; but idle all.

Still unexerted, in th' unconscious breast,
Slept the lethargic powers; corruption ftill,
Voracious, fwallowed what the liberal hand
Of bounty scatter'd o'er the favage year:
And still the fad barbarian, roving, mix'd
With beasts of prey; or for his acorn-meal
Fought the fierce tusky boar; a shivering wretch!
Aghaft, and comfortlefs, when the bleak north,
With Winter charg'd, let the mix'd tempest fly,
Hail, rain, and fnow, and bitter-breathing froft:
Then to the shelter of the hut he fled;

And the wild feason, fordid, pin'd away.
For home he had not; home is the resort

Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,
Supporting and fupported, polifh'd friends,