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"Thence on th' ideal kingdom swift she turns
Her eye; and inftant, at her powerful glance,
Th' obedient phantoms vanifh or appear;
Compound, divide, and into order shift,
Each to his rank, from plain perception up
To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train:
To Reason then, deducing truth from truth;
And notion quite abstract; where first begins
The world of fpirits, action all, and life
Unfetter'd, and unmix'd. But here the cloud,
So wills ETERNAL PROVIDENCE, fits deep.
Enough for us to know that this dark state,
In wayward passions loft, and vain pursuits,
This infancy of being, cannot prove
The final iffue of the works of GOD,

By boundless LOVE and perfect Wisdom form'd,
And ever rifing with the rifing mind.

1790

1795

1800

AUTUMN,

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The ARGUMENT.

The fubject propofed. Addreffed to Mr ONSLOW. A profpect of the fields ready for harvest. Reflections in praife of industry, raised by that view. Reaping. A tale relative to it. A harvefi-ftorm. Shooting and hunting, their barbarity. A ludicrous account of fox-hunting. A view of an orchard. Wall-fruit. Avineyard. A description of fogs, frequent in the latter part of AUTUMN: whence a digreffion, enquiring into the rife of fountains and rivers. Birds of feafon confidered, that now shift their habitation. The prodigious number of them that cover the northern and western ifles of SCOTLAND. Hence a view of the country. A prospect of the difcoloured, fading woods. After a gentle dufky day, moon-light. Autumnal meteors. Morning: to which fucceeds a calm, pure, fun-fhiny day, fuch as usually shuts up the feafon. The harvest being gathered in, the country diffolved in joy. The whole concludes with a panegyric on a philofophical country life.

AUTUM N.

YROWN'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 Wint'ry froft
Nitrous prepar'd; the various-bloffom'd Spring
Put in white promife forth; and Summer-funs
Concocted strong, 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 bosom 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,

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15.

Though weak in power, yet strong in ardent will, Whene'er her country rushes on her heart,20 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,

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1.

With golden light enliven'd wide invests
The happy world. Attemper'd funs arife,
Sweet-beam'd, and fhedding oft thro' lucid clouds...

L 2

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A pleafing

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