Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/109

 They, sportive, wheel; or, sailing down the stream, Are snatch'd immediate by the quick-eyed trout, Or darting salmon. Thro' the green-wood glade Some love to stray; there lodg'd, amus'd and fed, In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make The meads their choice, and visit every flower, And every latent herb: for the sweet task, To propagate their kinds, and where to wrap, In what soft beds, their young yet undisclos'd, Employs their tender care. Some to the house, The fold, and dairy, hungry, bend their flight; Sip round the pail, or taste the curdling cheese: Oft, inadvertent, from the milky stream They meet their fate; or, weltering in the bowl, With powerless wings around them wrapt, expire.

chief to heedless flies the window proves A constant death; where, gloomily retir'd, The villain spider lives, cunning, and fierce. Mixture abhorr'd! Amid a mangled heap Of carcasses, in eager watch he sits, O'erlooking all his waving snares around. Near the dire cell the dreadless wanderer oft Passes, as oft the ruffian shows his front; The prey at last ensnar'd, he dreadful darts, With rapid glide, along the leaning line; And, fixing in the wretch his cruel fangs, Strikes backward grimly pleas'd: the fluttering wing, And shriller sound declare extreme distress, And ask the helping hospitable hand.

the living surface of the ground: Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum, To him who muses thro' the woods at noon; Or drowsy shepherd, as he lies reclin'd, Rh