Lo! down the flope of yonder meads,

His fleecy care the fhepherd leads;

And, echoing from the neighb'ring hill,
Is heard his pipe's melodious trill;
While bleating lambkins join the found,
Playing their harmless gambols round.
But tell me, breezes, whence ye bear
This balmy sweetness through the air?
Behind that fence of hawthorn-bloom
Does Flora breathe the rich perfume?
The flow'ry tribes in order gay
There ope their beauties to the day:
From whence full oft the ruftic Fair

Her bofom decks, or braids her hair;
Whene'er the village-train with glee
Hail the Vernal jubilee.

ON

Vent thy all-blasting ire,

Till Autumn's ripen'd joys are fled,

And drear December call thee here again.

Enough hath Albion's drooping ifle

Felt of thy deftructive blast;

Ere this fhe fondly thought thy fury past,

And rais'd her head with many an op'ning smile.

II.

Freed from thy tyrannic chain,

Nature expanded all her blooming store,
Gladfome to find her pow'r again:

On ev'ry spray a bud was seen,

In ev'ry bud an infant flow'r

Pept through its veft of livelieft green:

On

On many a branch the feather'd throng

Woo'd the sweet Spring with happy fong,

Of future nuptials, and the chirping nest,

With all the parent in their breaft.

III.

On the mountain's funny top,

Piping his rural notes, the fhepherd fate,

While his young lambs the tender herbage crop,

And adown the mountain's fide

The soft stream cours'd with purling tide;

And the folemn murm'ring breeze,

Ruftling through the waving trees,

Render'd the rural harmony complete.

Along the dew-befpangled vale,

Blithfome with her flowing pail,

The milkmaid fung her matin ftrain,

Whilft, whiftling o'er his teeming ground,

The

The ploughman thought his labour crown'd,

And gladsome view'd the rifing grain.

IV.

Oh! hadft thou spar'd this blissful scene,

Happy, thrice happy had they been.

But, envious of these joys,

Enrag'd, thou bad'ft thy tempefts rise,

And fhed their fnowy fury round,

And fmite the pregnant ground.

Lo! the blafted bloffoms fall,

The froft-nipt buds decay,

The feather'd choir forget their amorous lay,

And mourn in filent fadnefs all.

V.

Forc'd from the mountain's head, now wrapt with snow,

The fhepherd feeks his warmer cot;

His lambkins, crowding in the folds below,

With piteous bleating mourn their changed lot.

No

No more the milkmaid, with her pail,

Chears with ruftic fong the vale;

Sullen, beneath his low-roof'd fhed,

The ploughman views his smiling prospects fled.
Avaunt, fell Winter! hence retire

To Caucafus' or Hecla's wither'd head.

There, within thy own demefne,

Vent thy all-blasting ire,

Till Autumn's ripen'd joys are fled,

And drear December call thee here again.

ADIEU, unholy themes of fong!

Angels, conduct my steps along

To Sinai's mount, the facred road,

Which heav'n-directed prophets trod;

When