Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/177

 To rear their graces into second life; To give Society its highest taste; Well-order'd Home Man's best delight to make; And by submissive wisdom, modest skill, With every gentle care-eluding art, 605 [sic] To raise the virtues, animate the bliss, And sweeten all the toils of human life: This be the female dignity, and praise.

swains now hasten to the hazel-bank; Where, down yon dale, the wildly-winding brook Falls hoarse from steep to steep. In close array, Fit for the thickets, and the tangling shrub, Ye virgins, come. For you their latest song The woodlands raise; the clustring nuts for you The lover finds amid the secret shade; And, where they burnish on the topmost bough, With active vigour crushes down the tree; Or shakes them ripe from the resigning husk, A glossy shower, and of an ardent brown, As are the ringlets of hair: ! form'd with every grace complete, Yet these neglecting, above beauty wife, And far transcending such a vulgar praise.

from the busy joy-resounding fields, In chearful error, let us tread the maze Of Autumn, unconfin'd; and taste, reviv'd, The breath of orchard big with bending fruit. Obedient to the breeze and beating ray, From the deep loaded bough a mellow shower Incessant melts away. The juicy pear Lies, in a soft profusion, scatter'd round. A various sweetness swells the gentle race; In species different, but in kind the same, By