When the fourth hour expires, with careful hand
The half-bak'd hops turn over.
Soon as time
Has well exhausted twice two glasses more,
They'll leap and crackle with their bursting seeds,
For use domestic, or for sale mature.
There are, who in the choice of cloth t'enfold
Their wealthy crop, the viler, coarser fort,
With prodigal æconomy prefer :
All that is good is cheap, all dear that’s base.
Besides, the planter shou'd a bait prepare,
T'intrap the chapman's notice, and divert
Shrewd Observation from her busy pry.
When in the bag thy hops the rustic treads,
Let him wear heel-less sandals ; nor presume
Their fragrancy barefooted to defile:
Such filthy ways for slaves in Malaga
Leave we to practise---Whence I've often seen,
When beautiful Dorinda's iv'ry hands
Had built the pastry-fabric (food divine
For Christmas gumbols and the hour of mirth)
As the dry'd foreign fruit, with piercing eye,
She cull’d suspicious---lo! she starts, the frowns
With indignation at a negro's nail.
Should'st thou thy harvest for the mart design, Be thine own factor; nor employ those drones 234
Who've
Who've stings, but make no honey, felfish Naves !
That thrive and fatten on the planter's toil.
What then remains unsung ? unless the care
To stack thy poles oblique in comely cones,
Left rot or rain destroy them---'Tis a sight
Most feemly to behold, and gives, O Winter !
A landskip not unpleasing er'n to thee.
And now, ye rivals of the hopland state, Madum and Dorovernia rejoice, How great amidst such rivals to excel ! Let * Grenovicum boast (for boast she may) The birth of great Eliza.---Hail, my queen ! Înd yet I'll call thee by a dearer name, My countrywoman, hail ! Thy worth alone Gives fame to worlds, and makes whole ages glorious !
Let Sevenoaks vaunt the hospitable seat
Of + Knoll most ancient : Awefully, my Muse,
These social scenes of grandeur and delight,
Of love and veneration, let me tread.
How oft beneath yon oak has amorous Prior
Awaken’d Echo with sweet Chloe's name !
While noble Sackville heard, hearing approv’d,
Approving, greatly recompens’d. But he,
Alas ! has number'd with th’illustrious dead,
And orphan merit has no guardian now!
Next Shipbourne, tho' her precincts are confin’d
To narrow limits, yet can shew a train
Of village beauties, pastorally sweet,
And rurally magnificent. Here * Fairlawn
Opes her delightful prospects : Dear Fairlawn
There, where at once at variance and agreed,
Nature and art hold dalliance. There where rills
Kiss the green drooping herbage, there where trees,
The tall trees tremble at th' approach of heav'n,
And bow their falutation to the sun,
Who fosters all their foliage---These are thine,
Yes, little Shipbourne, boaft that these are thine---
And if---But oh !--- and if ’tis no disgrace,
The birth of him who now records thy praise.
Nor shalt thou, Mereworth, remain unsung,
Where noble Westmoreland, his country's friend,
Bids British greatness love the silent shade,
Where piles fuperb, in classic elegance,
Arise, and all is Roman, like his heart.
Nor Chatham, tho' it is not thine to shew The lofty forest or the verdant lawns,
Yet niggard silence shall not grutch thee praise.
The lofty forests by thy fons prepar’d
Becomes the warlike navy, braves the floods,
And gives Sylvanus empire in the main.
Oh that Britannia, in the day of war,
Wou'd not alone Minerva's valour trust,
But also hear her wisdom ! Then her oaks
Shap'd by her own mechanics, wou'd alone
Her island fortify, and fix her fame ;
Nor wou'd she weep, like Rachael, for her sons,
Whose glorious blood, in mad profusion,
In foreign lands is shed---and shed in vain.
Now on fair Dover's topmost cliff i'll stand,
And look with scorn and triumph on proud France.
Of yore an isthmus jutting from this coast,
295 Join'd the Britannic to the Gallic shore; But Neptune on a day, with fury fir’d, Rear’d his tremendous trident, smote the earth, And broke th' unnatural union at a blow --« 'Twixt you and you, my servants and my fons, ,
300 « Be there (he cried) eternal discord---France « Shall bow the neck to Cantium's peerless offspring, “ And as the oak reigns lordly o'er the shrub, « So fhall the hop have homage from the vine.”
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