Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/48

XXXVI influence, and equally indebted to the renewed vegetable tribes for food and shelter, the several kinds of quadrupeds are represented as concurring in the celebration of this charming Season with conjugal and parental rites. Even Man himself, though from his social condition less under the dominion of physical necessities, is properly described as partaking of the general ardour. Such is the order and connexion of this whole book, that it might well pass for a commentary upon a most beautiful passage in the philosophical poet Lucretius; who certainly wanted nothing but a better system and more circumscribed subject, to have appeared as one of the greatest masters of description in either antient or modern poetry. Reasoning on the unperishable Nature, and perpetual circulation, of the particles of matter, he deduces all the delightful appearances of Spring from the seeds of fertility which descend in the vernal showers.

pereunt imbres, ubi eos pater Æther In gremium matris Terræ precipitavit. At nitidæ surgunt fruges, ramique virescunt Arboribus; crescunt ipsæ, fætuque gravantur; Hinc alitnr porro nostrum genus atque ferarum: Hinc lætas urbeis pueris florere videmus, Frundiferasque novis avibus canere undique sylvas. Hinc feffæ pecudes pingues per pabula læta Corpora deponunt, & candens lacteus humor Uberibus manat distentis; hinc nova proles Artubus infirmis teneras lasciva per herbas Ludit, lacte mero menteis percussa novellas. Lib. I, 251, &c.

The rains are lost, when Jove descends in showers Soft on the bosom oft the parent earth: But springs the shining grain; their verdant robe The trees resume; they grow, and pregnant bend Beneath their fertile load: hence kindly food The living tribes receive; the cheerful town Beholds its joyous bands of flowering youth;