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 !
United light and shade! where the sight dwells
With growing strength, and ever new delight.
From the moist meadow to the wither'd hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And swells, and deepens, to the cherish'd eye.
The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,
Till the whole leafy forest stands display'd,
In full luxuriance to the sighing gales;
Where the deer rustle thro' the twining brake,
And the birds sing conceal'd. At once, array'd
In all the colours of the flushing year,
By nature's swift end secret-working hand,
The garden glows, and fills the liberal air
With lavish fragrance; while the promis'd fruit
Lies yet a little embryo, unperceiv'd,

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Within its crimson folds. 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 drops
From the bent bush, as thro'.the verdant maze

Of sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk;

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Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend
Some eminence, AUGUSTA, in thy plains,

And see the country, far diffus'd around,

One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms; where the raptur'd eye

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Harries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath

The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.

If, brush'd 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, thro' all her foliage shrinks, Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste. For oft, engender'd by the hazy north, Myriads on myriads, insect armies warp Keen in the poison'd breeze; and wasteful eat, Thro' 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. To check this plague the skilful farmer chaff, And blazing straw, before his orchard burns; Till, all involv'd in smoke, the latent foe From every cranny suffocated falls:

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Or, scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust
Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe:

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Or, when th' envenom'd leaf begins to curl,
With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest;
Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill,
The little trooping birds unwisely scares.

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Be patient, swains; these cruel-seeming winds Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repress'd Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharg'd with rain, That o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne,

In endless train, would quench the summer-blaze, 140 And, cheerless, drown the crude unripened year

The north-east spends his rage; he now shut up Within his iron cave, th' 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 vapour sails
Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep
Sits on th' 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,

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The wish of nature. Gradual sinks the breeze
Into a perfect calm; that not a breath

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Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves
Of aspin tall. Th'uncurling floods, diffus'd
In glassy breadth, seem thro' delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all,
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and mute-imploring eye
The falling verdure. Hush'd in short suspense,
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;
And wait th' approaching sign to strike at once,
Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,
And forests seem, impatient, to demand
The promis'd sweetness. Man superior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise,
And looking lively gratitude. 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.

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The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard,
By such as wander thro' the forest walks,
Beneath th' umbrageous multitude of leaves.

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

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And fruits, and flowers, on Nature's ample lap?
Swift fancy fir'd anticipates their growth;
And, while the milky nutriment distils,
Beholds the kindling country colour round!
Thus all day long the full-distended clouds

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Indulge their genial stores, and well-shower'd earth
Is deep enrich'd 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

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Th' illumin'd mountain, thro' the forest streams,

Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,

Far smoking o'er th' interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.

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Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around,
Full swell the woods; their every music wakes,
Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increas'd, the distant bleatings of the hills,
And hollow lows responsive from the vales
Whence blending all the sweetened zephyr springs.
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

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Form, fronting on the sun, thy showery prism;
And to the sage-instructed eye unfold

The various twine of light, by thee disclos'd
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 amaz’d
Beholds th' amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds,

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A softened shade, and saturated earth
Awaits the morning-beam to give to light,

Rais'd thro' ten thousand different plastic tubes,
The balmy treasures of the former day.

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 thro' the forest, rank

With what the dull incurious weeds account,

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Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain-rock, Fir'd by the nodding verdure of its brow.

With such a liberal hand has nature flung

Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds, 230
Innumerous mix'd them with the nursing mould,
The moistening current, and prolific rain.

But who their virtues can declare? who pierce,
With vision pure, into these secret stores
Of health, and life, and joy? the food of Man,
While yet he liv'd in innocence,and told
A length of golden years; unflesh'd in blood,
A stranger to the savage arts of life,
Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit and disease;

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