ragement, it has therefore a natural claim to your patronage. Should you read it with approbation, its music shall not droop; and should it have the good fortune to deserve your smiles, its roses shall not wither. But, where the subject is so tempting, lest I begin my Poem before the Dedication is ended, I here break short, and beg leave to subscribe myself, with the highest respect,

MADAM,

Your most obedient,

humble Servant,

JAMES THOMSON.

SPRING.

ARGUMENT.

THE subject proposed. Inscribed to the Countess of Hertford. The Season is described as affects the various parts of Nature, ascending from the lower to the higher; and mixed with digressions arising from the subject. Its influence on inanimate Matter, on Vegetables, on brute Animals, and last on Man; concluding with a Dissuasive from the wild and irregular passion of Love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind.

SPRING.

COME, gentle SPRING! ethereal Mildness! come,
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While Music wakes around, veil'd in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.

O HERTFORD, fitted, or to shine in courts
With unaffected grace, or walk the plain
With Innocence and Meditation join'd
In soft assemblage, listen to my Song,
Which thy own Season paints; when Nature all
Is blooming, and benevolent, like thee.

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10

And see where surly WINTER passes off, Far to the North, and calls his ruffian Blasts: His Blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, The shatter'd forest, and the ravaged vale; While softer Gales succeed, at whose kind touch, Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, The Mountains lift their green heads to the sky. As yet the trembling Year is unconfirm❜d, And WINTER oft at eve resumes the breeze, Chills the pale Morn, and bids his driving sleets 20 Deform the Day delightless: so that scarce The Bittern knows his time, with bill ingulf'd,