Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/84

 And every sultry clime the snowy down Of cotton, bursting from its stubborn shell To gleam amid the verdure of the grove. With glossy hair of Tibet's shagged goat Are light tiaras woven, that wreath the head, And airy float behind The beaver's flix Hives kindliest warmth to weak enervate limbs, When the pale blood slow rises through the veins. Still shall o'er all prevail the shepherd's stores For num'rous uses known : none yield such warmth, Such beauteous hues receive, so long endure ; So pliant to the loom, so various, none. Wild rove the flocks, no burd'ning Fleece they bear In fervid climes ; Nature gives not in vain. Carmenian wool on the broad tail alone Resplendent swells, enormous in its growth : As the sleek ram from green to green removes, On aiding wheels his heavy pride he draws, And glad resigns it for the hatters' use. Ev'n in the new Columbian world appears The woolly covering : Apacheria's glades, And Canses', echo to the pipes and flocks Of foreign swains. While Time shakes down his sands, And works continual change, be none secure : Quicken your labours, brace your slackening nerves, Ye Britons ! nor sleep careless on the lap Of bounteous Nature ; she is elsewhere kind. See Mississippi lengthen on her lawns, Propitious to the shepherds ; see the sheep Of fertile Arica, like camels form'd, Which bear huge burdens to the sea-beat shore, And shine with Fleeces soft as feathery down. Coarse Bothnic locks are not devoid of use ; They clothe the mountain carl, or mariner Labouring at the wet shrouds or stubborn helm,