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Rural Poetry

OF

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

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THOMSON'S "SPRING."

ARGUMENT.

The subject proposed. Inscribed to the Countess of Hertford. The season is described as it affects the various parts of nature, ascending from the lower to the higher; with digressions arising from the subject. Its influence on inanimate matter, on vegetables, on brute animals, and lastly on man; concluding with a dissuasive from the wild and irregular passion of love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind.

INVOCATION TO SPRING. DEDICATION.

COME, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness! come,
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veiled in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.

O Hertford1! fitted or to shine in courts
With unaffected grace, or walk the plain
With innocence and meditation joined
In soft assemblage, listen to my song,
Which thy own season paints, when Nature all
Is blooming and benevolent, like thee.

1 The Countess of Hertford, a patroness of poetry, had invited the poet to her residence, and during his visit he wrote "Spring." He dedicated his "Summer" to her; a magnificent acknowledgment for her hospitality.

RELUCTANT RETREAT OF WINTER. THE BITTERN; PLOVERS.

And see where surly Winter passes off, Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts : His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, The shattered forest, and the ravaged vale; While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch, Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed, And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze, Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets Deform the day delightless; so that scarce The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulfed, To shake the sounding marsh; or from the shore The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath, And sing their wild notes to the listening waste.

EFFECTS OF RETURNING WARMTH. PLOUGHING; SOWING.
At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun,
And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more
The expansive atmosphere is cramped with cold;
But, full of life and vivifying soul,

Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them thin,
Fleecy, and white, o'er all-surrounding heaven.
Forth fly the tepid airs; and unconfined,

Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays.

Joyous, the impatient husbandman perceives
Relenting Nature, and his lusty steers

Drives from their stalls, to where the well-used plough
Lies in the furrow, loosened from the frost.
There, unrefusing, to the harnessed yoke
They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil,
Cheered by the simple song and soaring lark.
Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share
The master leans, removes the obstructing clay,
Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe.
While through the neighboring fields the sower
stalks

With measured step, and, liberal, throws the grain
Into the faithful bosom of the ground:
The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.

INVOCATION TO THE POWERS OF NATURE. FARMING A SUB-
JECT WORTHY OF THE POET; VIRGIL DIGNITY OF AGRI-
CULTURE. BRITONS SHOULD BLESS MANKIND BY PLOUGH-
ING THE LAND AS WELL AS THE SEA.

Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious man
Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow!
Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend!
And temper all, thou world-reviving sun,
Into the perfect year! Nor ye who live
In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride,
Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear:
Such themes as these the rural Maro1 sung
To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height
Of elegance and taste, by Greece refined.

In ancient times the sacred plough employed
The kings and awful fathers of mankind;
And some, with whom compared your insect-tribes
Are but the beings of a summer's day,
Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm
Of mighty war; then, with unwearied hand,
Disdaining little delicacies, seized

The plough, and greatly independent lived.

Ye generous Britons, venerate the plough! And o'er your hills, and long withdrawing vales, Let Autumn spread his treasures to the sun, Luxuriant and unbounded. As the sea, Far through his azure, turbulent domain, Your empire owns, and from a thousand shores Wafts all the pomp of life into your ports, So with superior boon may your rich soil, Exuberant, Nature's better blessings pour O'er every land, the naked nations clothe, And be the exhaustless granary of a world!

VERDURE REVIVED.-HAWTHORN BLOSSOMS; BUDS; LEAVES;
DEER. THE GARDEN IN BLOOM.

Nor only through the lenient air this change,
Delicious, breathes; the penetrative sun,
His force deep-darting to the dark retreat
Of vegetation, sets the steaming power
At large, to wander o'er the verdant earth,
In various hues; but chiefly thee, gay green!
Thou smiling Nature's universal robe !

1 Virgil, whose Latin name was Publius Virgilius Maro.

United light and shade! where the sight dwells
With growing strength, and ever-new delight.
From the moist meadow to the withered hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And swells, and deepens, to the cherished eye.
The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,
Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed,
In full luxuriance, to the sighing gales;
Where the deer rustle through the twining brake,
And the birds sing concealed. At once arrayed
In all the colors of the flushing year,
By Nature's swift and secret-working hand,
The garden glows, and fills the liberal air
With lavish fragrance; while the promised fruit
Lies yet a little embryo, unperceived,
Within its crimson folds.

THE CITIZEN'S WALK INTO THE COUNTRY IN SPRING.A WORLD OF BLOSSOMS.

[drops

Now from the town
Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps,
Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,
Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling
From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze
Of sweetbrier hedges I pursue my walk;
Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend
Some eminence, Augusta,' in thy plains,
And see the country, far diffused around,

One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms; where the raptured eye
Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath
The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.

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If, brushed from Russian wilds, a cutting gale Rise not, and scatter from his humid wings The clammy mildew; or, dry-blowing, breathe Untimely frost; before whose baleful blast The full-blown Spring through all her foliage shrinks, Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste. For oft, engendered by the hazy north, Myriads on myriads, insect armies warp Keen in the poisoned breeze; and wasteful eat, Through buds and bark, into the blackened core, Their eager way. A feeble race! yet oft The sacred sons of vengeance, on whose course Corrosive Famine waits, and kills the year.

HOW TO DESTROY INSECTS.

To check this plague, the skilful farmer chaff
And blazing straw before his orchard burns;
Till, all involved in smoke, the latent foe
From every cranny suffocated falls :
Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust
Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe :

Or, when the envenomed leaf begins to curl,
With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest;

1 The poetic name of London.

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THE SOUTH WIND; IT BRINGS GRATEFUL MOISTURE.

The north-east spends his rage; he now shut up Within his iron cave, the effusive south Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent. At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise, Scarce staining ether; but by swift degrees, In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapor sails Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep Sits on the horizon round a settled gloom; Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed, Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind, And full of every hope and every joy, The wish of Nature.

THE CALM BEFORE A SHOWER. GLAD EXPECTATION OF ALL

NATURE.

Gradual sinks the breeze

Into a perfect calm; that not a breath
Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves
Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, difused
In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. 'T is silence all
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye
The falling verdure. Hushed in short suspense,
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,1
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off,
And wait the approaching sign to strike, at once,
Into the general choir. E'en mountains, vales,
And forests seem, impatient, to demand
The promised sweetness. Man superior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise,
And looking lively gratitude.

THE FERTILIZING APRIL SHOWER.

At last

The clouds consign their treasures to the fields;
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,
In large effusion, o'er the freshened world.
The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard
By such as wander through the forest walks,
Beneath the umbrageous multitude of leaves.

1 At the present day, it is almost unnecessary to state that the poet was mistaken, and that modern naturalists have satisfactorily disproved the power of any, even aquatic birds, to oil their plumage; their dressing and pruning consists simply in arranging their disordered feathers.

But who can hold the shade, while Heaven descends
In universal bounty, shedding herbs

And fruits and flowers on Nature's ample lap!
Swift Fancy fired anticipates their growth;
And, while the milky nutriment distils,
Beholds the kindling country color round.

CLEARING UP OF THE APRIL SHOWER. THE SUN; RAIN-
DROPS; BIRDS; BROOKS; LOWING OF CATTLE; ZEPHYR.
Thus all day long the full-distended clouds
Indulge their genial stores, and well-showered earth
Is deep enriched with vegetable life;
Till, in the western sky, the downward sun
Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush
Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam.
The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes
The illumined mountain, through the forest streams,
Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,
Far smoking o'er the interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.
Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around;
Full swell the woods; their every music wakes,
Mixed in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increased, the distant bleatings of the hills,
And hollow lows responsive from the vales,
Whence blending all the sweetened zephyr springs.

THE RAINBOW.-NEWTON'S PRISM. THE COUNTRY BOY.NIGHT.

Meantime, refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense; and every hue unfolds
In fair proportion, running from the red
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful Newton! the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting on the sun, thy showery prism;
And to the sage-instructed eye unfold
The various twine of light, by thee disclosed
From the white-mingling maze.
Not so the boy;
He wondering views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amazed
Beholds the amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds,

A softened shade, and saturated earth
Awaits the morning beam, to give to light,
Raised through ten thousand different plastic tubes,
The balmy treasures of the former day.

BOTANIZING. PROFUSE VARIETY OF THE VEGETABLE WORLD. -DIFFUSION OF SEEDS.

Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild, O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power Of botanist to number up their tribes; Whether he steals along the lonely dale, In silent search; or through the forest, rank With what the dull incurious weeds account, Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain rock, Fired by the nodding verdure of its brow. With such a liberal hand has Nature flung Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds,

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