Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/160

 the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days, And Libra weighs in equal scales the year; From heaven's high cope fierce effulgence shook Of parting Summer, a serener blue, With golden light enliven'd, wide invests The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise, Sweet-beam'd, and shedding oft thro' lucid clouds A pleasing calm; while broad, and brown, below Extensive harvests hang the heavy head. Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain; A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow. Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky; The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun By fits effulgent gilds th' illumin'd field, And black by fits the shadows sweep along. A gaily-checker'd heart-expanding view, Far as the circling eye can shoot around, Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.

are thy blessings, ! rough power! Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain; Yet the kind source of every gentle art, And all the soft civility of life: Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast, Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods, And wilds, to rude inclement elements; With various seeds of art deep in the mind Implanted, and profusely pour'd around Materials infinite; but idle all. Still unexerted, in th' unconscious breast, Slept the lethargic powers; corruption still, Voracious, swallowed what the liberal hand Of bounty scatter'd o'er the savage year: And