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Beauties of Vegetation.

In various hues; but chiefly thee, gay Green !
Thou smiling Nature's universal robe !
United light and shade! where the sight dwells
With growing strength, and ever-new delight.

From the moist meadow to the withered hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And swells, and deepens, to the cherished eye;
The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,
Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed,
In full luxuriance to the sighing gales;

Where the deer rustle thro' the twining brake,
And the birds sing concealed. At once, arrayed
In all the colours of the flushing year,

By Nature's swift and secret-working hand,
The garden glows, and fills the liberal air

* With lavish fragrance; while the promised fruit
Lies yet a little embryo, unperceived,

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Within its crimson folds. Now from the town
Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps,

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Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,
Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops

From the bent bush, as thro' the verdant maze

Of sweet-briar hedges, I pursue my walk,

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Or taste the smell of daisy; or ascend

Some eminence, AUGUSTA, in thy plains,

And see the country, far diffused around,

One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms; where the raptured eye
Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath
The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.

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If, brushed from Russian wilds, a cutting gale

Ravages of Insects.

Rise not, and scatter from his humid wings
The clammy mildew; or, dry-blowing, breathe
Untimely frost; before whose baleful blast

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The full-blown Spring thro' all her foliage shrinks,
Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste.
For oft, engendered by the hazy north,
Myriads on myriads, insect armies waft

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Keen in the poisoned breeze; and wasteful eat,
Thro' buds and bark, into the blackened core,
Their eager way. A feeble race! yet oft

The sacred sons of vengeance; on whose course
Corrosive famine waits, and kills the year.
To check this plague the skilful farmer chaff,
And blazing straw before his orchard burns;

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Till, all involved in smoke, the latent foe

From every cranny suffocated falls :

Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust

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Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe:

Or, when th' envenomed leaf begins to curl,

With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest;

Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill,

The little trooping birds unwisely scares.

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Be patient, swains; these cruel-seeming winds

Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repressed
Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharged with rain,
That o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne,

In endless train, would quench the summer-blaze,
And, cheerless, drown the crude unripened year.
The north-east spends his rage; he now shut up

Within his iron cave, th' effusive south

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Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent. 145

Clouds,preparatory to Rain.

At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining ether; but by swift degrees,
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails
Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep
Sits on the horizon round a settled gloom :
Not such as wintry-storms on mortals shed,
Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope and every joy,

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The wish of Nature. Gradual sinks the breeze

Into a perfect calm; that not a breath

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Is heard to quiver thro' the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves
Of aspin tall. Th' uncurling floods, diffused
In glassy breadth, seem thro' delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all,
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye
The falling verdure. Hushed in short suspense,
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;
And wait th' approaching sign to strike at once,
Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,
And forests seem, impatient, to demand
The promised sweetness. Man superior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise,

And looking lively gratitude. At last,

The clouds consign their treasures to the fields ;
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,
In large effusion, o'er the freshened world.
The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard,
By such as wander thro' the forest walks,

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Refreshing Showers and Rainbow.

Beneath the umbrageous multitude of leaves.

But who can hold the shade, while Heaven descends

In universal bounty, shedding herbs,

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And fruits, and flowers, on Nature's ample lap?

Swift fancy fired anticipates their growth;

And, while the milky nutriment distils,
Beholds the kindling country colour round.

Thus all day long the full-distended clouds

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Indulge their genial stores, and well-showered earth
Is deep enriched with vegetable life;

Till in the western sky, the downward sun

Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush

Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam.

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The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes

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Th' illumined mountain, thro' the forest streams,
Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,

Far smoking o'er th' interminable plain,

In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.

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Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around, Full swell the woods; their every music wakes,

Mixed in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increased, the distant bleatings of the hills,
And hollow lows responsive from the vales,
Whence blending all the sweetened zephyr springs.
Mean time refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense; and every hue unfolds,

In fair proportion running from the red,

To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful NEWTON, the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting on the sun, thy showery prism;
And to the sage-instructed eye unfold

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Variety of the Vegetable Tribes.

The various twine of light, by thee disclosed
From the white mingling maze. Not so the boy;
He wondering views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amazed
Beholds th' amusive arch before him fly,

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Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds,

A softened shade, and saturated earth

Awaits the morning-beam, to give to light,

Raised thro' ten thousand different plastic tubes,
The balmy treasures of the former day.

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Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild,
O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power
Of botanist to number up their tribes :
Whether he steals along the lonely dale,

In silent search; or thro' the forest, rank

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With what the dull incurious weeds account,

Bursts his blind way; or climbs the mountain-rock,

Fired by the nodding verdure of its brow.

With such a liberal hand has nature flung

Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds,

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Innumerous mixed them with the nursing mould,
The moistening current, and prolific rain.

But who their virtues can declare ? who pierce,
With vision pure, into these secret stores
Of health, and life, and joy? the food of Man,
While yet he lived in innocence, and told
A length of golden years; unfleshed in blood,
A stranger to the savage arts of life,

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Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease;
The lord, and not the tyrant of the world.

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The first fresh dawn then waked the gladdened race

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