Thou doft innocently enjoy, Nor does thy luxury destroy:
Thee country hinds with gladness hear, Prophet of the ripened year
To thee, of all things upon earth,
Life is no longer than thy mirth.
Happy infect, happy, thou
Doft neither age nor winter know.
But when thou 'ft drunk, and danced and fung, Thy fill the flowery leaves among,
Sated with thy summer feast
Thou retir'ft to endless reft.
How cheerful along the gay mead The daify and cowslip appear! The flocks, as they carelessly feed, Rejoice in the fpring of the year.
The myrtles that deck the gay bowers, The herbage that fprings from the fod, Trees, plants, cooling fruits, and fweet flowers, All rife to the praise of my God.
The Bulfinch in Town.
Then let not what I cannot have My cheer of mind destroy; While thus I fing, I am a king,
Although a poor blind boy.
HARK to the blackbird's pleafing note; Sweet ufher of the vocal throng! Nature directs his warbling throat, And all that hear admire the fong.
Yon bulfinch, with unvary'd tone, Of cadence harsh and accent fhrill, Has brighter plumage to atone For want of harmony and skill.
And while to please fome courtly fair He one dull tune with labour learns, A well-gilt cage, remote from air, And faded plumes, is all he earns.
Go, hapless captive! ftill repeat The founds which Nature never taught; Go, liftening fair! and call them fweet, Because you know them dearly bought.
Unenvied both, go hear and fing Your ftudied music o'er and o'er! Whilst I attend th' inviting spring In fields where birds unfettered foar.
LADY LUXBOROUGH.
A TEAR bedews my Delia's eye To think yon playful kid must die; From cryftal fpring, and flowery mead, Muft, in his prime of life, recede!
Erewhile, in fportive circles, round
She faw him wheel, and frifk, and bound; From rock to rock purfue his way,"
And on the fearful margin play.
Pleased on his various freaks to dwell, She faw him climb my ruftic cell;
Thence eye my lawns with verdure bright, And seem all ravished at the fight.
She tells with what delight he flood To trace his features in the flood: Then skipp'd aloof with quaint amaze; And then drew near again to gaze.
She tells me how with eager speed He flew to hear my vocal reed ; And how with critic face profound, And steadfast ear, devour'd the found.
His every frolic, light as air, Deferves the gentle Delia's care; And tears bedew her tender eye
To think the playful kid must die.
MINDFUL of difafter paft,.
And fhrinking at the northern blast,....
The First of April.
The fleety storm returning still,
The morning hoar, the evening chill, Reluctant comes the timid Spring. Scarce a bee with airy ring
Murmurs the bloffom'd boughs around That clothe the garden's fouthern bound; Scarce the hardy primrose peeps
From the dark dell's entangled steeps: O'er the field of waving broom
Slowly shoots the golden bloom:
Scant, along the ridgy land
The beans their new-born ranks expand; The fresh-turned foil with tender blades Thinly the fprouting barley fhades: The fwallow, for a moment feen, Skims in hafte the village green: Fraught with a tranfient frozen shower, If a cloud fhould haply lower, Sailing o'er the landscape dark, Mute on a fudden is the lark; But, when gleams the fun again O'er the pearl-besprinkled plain, And from behind his watery veil Looks through the thin defcending hail,
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