Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/181

 With weighty rains, and melted Alpine snows, The mountain-cisterns fill, those ample stores Of water, scoop'd among the hollow rocks: Whence gush the streams, the ceaseless fountains play, And their unfailing wealth the rivers draw. Some sages say, that, where the numerous wave For ever lashes the resounding shore, Drill'd thro' the sandy stratum, every way, The waters with the sandy stratum rise; Amid whose angles infinitely strain'd, They joyful leave their jaggy salts behind, And clear and sweeten, as they soak along. Nor stops the restless fluid, mounting still, Tho' oft amidst th' irriguous vale it springs; But to the mountain courted by the sand, That leads it darkling on in faithful maze, Far from the parent-main, it boils again Fresh into day; and all the glittering hill Is bright with spouting rills. But hence this vain Amusive dream! why should the waters love To take so far a journey to the hills, When the sweet valleys offer to their toil Inviting quiet, and a nearer bed? Or if, by blind ambition led astray, They must aspire; why should they sudden stop Among the broken mountain's rushy dells, And, ere they gain its highest peak, desert Th' attractive sand that charm'd their course so long? Besides, the hard agglomerating salts, The spoil of ages, would impervious choak Their secret channels; or, by slow degrees, High as the hills protrude the swelling vales: Old Ocean too, suck'd thro' the porous globe, Had long ere now forsook his horrid bed, And brought Deucalion's watry times again.