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Drooping all night; and when he, warm, returns, Points her enamour'd bosom to his ray.

Home, from his morning task, the swain retreats;
His flock, before him, loitering to the fold;
While the full-udder'd mother lows around
The cheerful cottage, then expecting food,
The food of innocence and health! The daw,
The rook, and magpie, to the grey-grown oaks,
That the calm village in their verdant arms
Sheltering embrace, direct their lazy flight;
Where, on the mingling boughs, they sit embower'd
All the hot noon, till cooler hours arise.
Faint, underneath, the houshold fowls convene;
And in a corner of the buzzing shade,

The house-dog with the vacant greyhound lies
Outstretch'd and sleepy. In his slumbers, one
Attacks the nightly thief, and one exults
O'er hill and dale; till waken'd by the wasp,
They starting snap.

Waked by the warmer ray, the reptile young
Come wing'd abroad; by the light air upborne,
Lighter and full of soul. From every chink
And secret corner, where they slept away
The wintry storms; or rising from their tombs
To higher life, by myriads, forth at once,
Swarming, they pour; of all the varied hues
Their beauty-beaming parent can disclose.
Ten thousand forms! ten thousand different tribes!
People the blaze. To sunny waters, some,
By fatal instinct fly; where, on the pool,

They sportive wheel; or, sailing down the stream,
Are snatch'd immediate by the quick-eyed trout,
Or darting salmon. Through the greenwood glade
Some love to stray; there lodged, amused, and fed,
In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make
The meads their choice, and visit every flower
And every latent herb. Some to the house,
The fold, the dairy, hungry, bend their flight;
Sip round the pail, or taste the curdling cheese;
Oft inadvertent, from the milky stream,
They meet their fate; or, weltering in the bowl,
With powerless wings around them wrapt, expire.
'Tis raging noon; and vertical, the sun
Darts on the head direct his forceful rays.
O'er heav'n and earth, far as the ranging eye
Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all
From pole to pole is undistinguish'd blaze.
Echo no more returns the chearful sound
Of sharpening scythe; the mower, sinking, heaps
Oer him, the humid hay, with flowers perfumed.
And scarce a chirping grass-hopper is heard
Through the dumb mead. Distressful nature pants ;
The very streams look languid from afar;

Or through the unshelter'd glade, impatient seem
To hurl into the covert of the grove.

Around the adjoining brook, that purls along
The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock,
Now scarcely moving through a reedy pool,
Now starting to a sudden stream, and now,
Gently diffus'd into a limpid plain,

A various group the flocks and herds compose;
Rural confusion! on the grassy bank
Some ruminating lie; while others stand
Half in the flood, and often bending, sip
The circling surface. In the middle, droops
The strong laborious ox, of honest front,
Which, incomposed, he shakes; and from his sides
The troublous insects lashes with his tail,
Returning still. Amid his subjects safe,
Slumbers the monarch swain; his careless arm
Thrown round his head, on downy moss sustain'd;
Here lies his scrip, with wholesome viands fill'd;
There, listening every noise, his watchful dog.

THE STORM.

Southey.

How darkly o'er yon far off mountain, frowns
The gathering tempest! From that lurid cloud,
The deep-voiced thunder rolls, awful and loud,
Though distant; while upon the misty down
Fast falls in shadowy streaks the pelting rain!
So terrible a storm, I never saw.

Perhaps some way-worn traveller in vain

Wraps his torn garment round his shivering form,
Cold, even as hope within him; I, the while,
Pause me in silence; though the sun-beams shine
Cheerily round me. Ah! that thus my lot
Might be with peace and solitude assign'd;
Where I might, from some little quiet cot,
Sigh for the crimes and miseries of mankind.

OSSIAN'S HYMN TO THE SUN.

OH! thou, whose beams the sea-girt earth array,
King of the skies, and father of the day!
Oh sun! what fountain, hid from human eyes,
Supplies thy circle round the radient skies,
For ever burning, and for ever bright,
With heaven's pure fire and everlasting light.
What awful beauty in thy face appears!
Immortal youth, beyond the power of years.
When gloomy darkness to thy reign resigns,
And from the gate of morn thy glory shines;
The fading stars betake themselves to flight,
And every planet hides its head in night;
The silver queen forsakes the etherial plain,
To sink inglorious in the western main.
The clouds refulgent deck thy golden throne,
While in the height of heaven thou reign'st alone.
Who may abide the brightness of thy face,
Or who attend thee in thy rapid race?

The mountain oaks, like their own leaves, decay;
The rocky mountains wear with age, away;
The boundless main which rolls from land to land,
Lessens at times, and leaves a waste of sand;
But thou, through ages, shalt remain the same;
Thy light exhaustless and unspent thy flame.
When gloomy tempests, dark, impend on high,
Obscure the day and load the labouring sky;
When heaven's wide arch glows with red lightnings
dire,

All æther flaming, and all earth on fire;

When loud and long, the deep-voiced thunder rolls,
And peals on peals redoubled rend the poles ;
If through the opening clouds thy form appears,
Her wonted charm renewed nature wears!
Thy beauteous orb restores departed day,
Smiles from the sky, and laughs the storm away.

THE WISH.

MINE be a cottage in the vale,
Fann'd by a balmy southern gale;

A casement fringed with woodbine round,
A milk white hearth with roses crown'd.
There, in a parlour, trim and neat,
Gay youth and smiling age shall meet;
Some long remember'd tune to hear,
Or tales of many a far-fled year.
At sunset, in a little grove,

Oft may I tranquil, quiet rove,

While vagrant honeysuckles climb

Midst strawberries wild and purple thyme.

Be mine a garden with a screen
Of eglantine, and holly green;

A tuft of moss to rest upon,
When summer's noontide heat is gone;
A bee-hive and a sunny bed,
Where rosemary and myrtle spread;
For they, when gaudy flow'rs decay,
Will with their humble owner stay:

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