ild;Now to the dust gone down; his houses, lands,
"And once fair-spreading family, dissolved.
lled ""Tis said that in some lone obscure retreat,
I Urged by remembrance sad, and decent pride,
"Far from those scenes which knew their better days,
"His aged widow and his daughter live,
"Whom yet my fruitless search could never find.
"Romantic wish! would this the daughter were !"
! When, strict enquiring, from herself he found
She was the same, the daughter of his friend,
Of bountiful ACASTO: who can speak
The mingled passions that surprised his heart,
And through his nerves in shivering transport ran?
Then blazed his smothered flame, avowed, and bold;
And as he viewed her, ardent, o'er and o'er,
Love, gratitude, and pity, wept at once.
Confused, and frightened at his sudden tears,
Her rising beauties flushed a higher bloom,
As thus PALEMON, passionate, and just,
Poured out the pious rapture of his soul:
"And art thou then ACASTo's dear remains?
"She, whom my restless gratitude has sought,
« So long in vain? O heavens ! the very same, < The softened image of my noble friend,
"Alive his every look, his every feature,
< More elegantly touched. Sweeter than Spring! 270 Thou sole surviving blossom from the root "That nourished up my fortune! Say, ah where, "In what sequestered desert, hast thou drawn "The kindest aspect of delighted Heaven? "Into such beauty spread, and blown so fair << Tho' poverty's cold wind, and crushing rain,
"Beat keen, and heavy, on thy tender years?
"O let me now, into a richer soil,
"Transplant thee safe! where vernal suns, and showers,
"Diffuse their warmest, largest influence;
"And of my garden be the pride, and joy !
Ill it befits thee, oh it ill befits
"ACASTO's daughter, his whose open stores,
"Tho' vast, were little to his ample heart,
"The father of a country, thus to pick
"The very refuse of those harvest fields,
"Which from his bounteous friendship I enjoy.
"Then throw that shameful pittance from thy hand,
"But ill applied to such a rugged task :
"The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine;
<< If to the various blessings which thy house
"Has on me Javished, thou wilt add that bliss,
That dearest bliss, the power of blessing thee !"
Here ceased the youth: yet still his speaking eye
Expressed the sacred triumph of his soul,
With conscious virtue, gratitude, and love,
Above the vulgar joy divinely raised.
Nor waited he reply. Won by the charma
Of goodness irresistible, and all
In sweet disorder lost, she blushed consent.
The news immediate to her mother brought,
While, pierced with anxious thought, she pined away
The lonely moments for LAVINIA's fate
Amazed, and scarce believing what she heard,
Joy seized her withered veins, and one bright gleam 305 Of setting life shone on her evening-hours:
Not less enraptured than the happy pair;
Who flourished long in tender bliss, and reared
A numerous offspring, lovely like themselves;
And good, the grace of all the country round.
Defeating oft the labours of the year
The sultry south collects a potent blast.
At first the groves are scarcely seen to
Their trembling tops; and a still murmur runs
Along the soft inclining fields of corn.
But as the aërial tempest fuller swells,
And in one mighty stream, invisible,
Immense, the whole excited atmosphere,
Impetuous rushes o'er the sounding world;
Strained to the root, the stooping forest pours
A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves.
High-beat, the circling mountains eddy in,
From the bare wild, the dissipated storm,
And send it in a torrent down the vale.
Exposed, and naked to its utmost rage,
Through all the sea of harvest roiling round,
The billowy plain floats wide; nor can evade,
Though pliant to the blast, its seizing force:
Or whirled in air, or into vacant chaff
Shook waste. And sometimes too a burst of rain,
Swept from the black horizon, broad, descends
In one continuous flood. Still over head
The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and still
The deluge deepens; till the fields around
Lie sunk, and flatted, in the sordid wave.
Sudden the ditches swell, the medows swim."
Red, from the hills, innumerable streams
Tumultuous roar; and high above its banks
The river lift; before whose rushing tide,
Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages and swains,
Roll mingled down; all that the winds had spared.
In one wild moment ruined; the big hopes,
And well-earned treasures of the painful year.
Fled to some eminence, the husbandman
Helpless, beholds the miserable wreck
Driving along; his drowning ox at once
Descending, with his labours scatter'd round,
He sees; and instant o'er his shivering thought
Comes winter unprovided, and a train
Of claimant children dear. Ye masters, then,
Be mindful of the rough laborious hand,
That sinks you soft in elegance and ease;
Be mindful of those limbs in russet clad
Whose toil to your's is warmth, and graceful pride;
And, oh! be mindful of that sparing board,
Which covers yours with luxury profuse,
Makes your glass sparkle, and your sense rejoice!
Nor cruelly demand what the deep rains,
And all-involving winds have swept away.
Here the rude clamour of the sportsman's joy,
The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn,
Would tempt the Muse to sing the rural Game:
How, in his mid career, the spaniel struck,
Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose,
Outstretched, and finely sensible, draws full,
Fearful and cautious, on the latent prey;
As in the sun the circling covey bask
Their varied plumes, and watchful every way,
Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye.
Caught in the meshy snare,
in vai eye
they beat Their idle wings, entangled more and more: Nor on the surges of the boundless air,
red Tho' borne triumphant, are they safe: the gun,
Glanced just, and sudden, from the fowler's eye
O'ertakes their sounding pinions; and again,
Immediate, brings them from the towering wing,
Dead to the ground, or drives them wide-dispersed,
Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind.
These are not subjects for the peaceful Muse,
Nor will she stain with such her spotless song ;
Then most delighted, when she social sees
The whole mixed animal creation round
Alive, and happy. 'Tis not joy to her,
This falsely cheerful barbarous game of death;
This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth
Awakes, impatient, with the gleaming morn ;
When beasts of prey retire, that all night long,
Urged by, necessity, had ranged the dark,
As if their conscious ravage shunned the light,
Ashamed. Not so the steady tyrant Man,
Who with the thoughtless insolence of power
Inflamed, beyond the most infuriate wrath
Of the worst monster that e'er roamed the waste,
For sport alone pursues the cruel chace,
Amid the beamings of the gentle days.
Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage,
For hunger kindles you, and lawless want;
But lavish fed, in Nature's bounty rolled,
To joy at anguish and delight in blood,
Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.
Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare !
Scared from the corn, and now to some lone seat
Retired the rushy fen; the ragged furze,
Stretched o'er the stony heath; the stubble chapt
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