Here wandering oft, fired with the restless thirst
Ol'thy applause, I solitary court
The' inspiring breeze : and meditate the book
Of Nature ever open ; aiming thience,

G7C
Warm from the heart, to learn the moral song.
Here, as I steal along the sunny wall,
Where Autumn basks, with fruit empurpled deep,
My pleasing theme continual prompts my thought:
Presents the downy peach; the shining plum; 675
The ruddy, fragrant nectarine ; and dark,
Beneath his ample leaf, the luscious fig.
The vine too bere her curling tendrils shoots ;
Hangs out her clusters, glowing to the south;
And scarcely wishes for a warmer sky.

680 Turn we a moment Fancy's rapid flight To vigorous soils and climes of fair extent; Where, by the potent sun clated high, The vineyard swells refulgent on the day; Spreads o'er the vale ; or up the mountain climbs, 685 Profuse ; and drinks amid the sunny rocks, From cliff to cliff increased, the heighten'd blazo. Low bend the weighty boughs. The clusters clear, Half through the foliage seen, or ardent flame, Or shine transparent; while perfection breathes 690 White o'er the turgent film the living dew. As thus they brighten with exalted juice, Touch'd into flavour by the mingling ray; The rural youth and virgins o'er the field, Each fond for each to cull the' autumnal prime, 695 Exulting rove, and speak the vintaye nigh. Then comes the crushing swain; the country floats, And foams unbounded with the mashy flood; That, by degrees ferınented and refined, Round the raised nations pours the cup of jcy: 700 The claret smooth, red as the lip we press In sparkling fancy, while we drain the bowl; The mellow-tasted burgundy; and, quick As is the wit it gives, the gay champagno.

Now, by the cool declining year condensed,

705 Descend the copious exhalations, check'd As up the middle sky unseen they stole, And roll the doubling fogs around the hill. No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime, Who pours a sweep of rivers from his sides, 710 And high between contending kingdoms rears The rocky long division, fills the view With great variety ; but in a night Of gathering vapour, from the baffled sense Sinks dark and dreary. Thence expanding far, 715 The huge dusk, gradual, swallows up the plain Vanish the woods: the dim-seen river seems Sullen, and slow, to roll the misty wave. E'en in the height of noon oppress'd, the sun Sheds weak and blunt his wide-refracted ray; 720 Whence glaring oft, with many a broadend orb, He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth, Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life Objects aspear; and, wilder'd, o'er the waste The shepherd stalks gigantic. Till at last

725 Wreathed dun arou d, in deeper circles still Successive closing, sits the general fog Unbounded o'er the world; and, mingling thick, A formless gray confusion covers all. As when of old (so sung the Hebrew Bard) 730 Light, uncollected, through the chaos urged Its infant way; nor Order yet had drawn His lovely train from out the dubious gloom.

These roving mists, that constant now begin To smoko along the hilly country, these,

735 With weighty rains, and melted Alpine snows, The mountain cisterns fill, those ample stores Of water, scoop'd among the hollow rocks; Whence gush the streams, the ceaseless fountains play, And their unfailing wealth the rivers draw. 740 Some sages say, that, where the numerous waro For ever lashes the resounding shore,

Drill'd through the sandy stratum, every way,
The waters with the sandy stratum rise ;
Amid whose angles infinitely strain'd,

745
They joyful leave their jaggy salts behind,
And clear and sweeten as they soak along.
Nor stops the restless fluid, mounting still,
Though oft amidst the' irriguous vale it springs ;
But to the mountain courted by the sand, 750
That leads it darkling on in faithful maze,
Far from the parent main, it boils again
Fresh into day; and all the glittering hill
Is bright with spouting rills. But hence this vain
Amusive dream! why should the waters love 755
To take so far a journey to the hills,
When the sweet valleys offer to their toil
Inviting quiet and a nearer bed ?
Or if, by blind ambition led astray,
They must aspire ; why should they sudden stop 760
Among the broken mountain's rushy dells,
And, cre they gain its highest peak, desert
The' attractive sand that charm’d their course so long?
Besides, the hard agglomerating salts,
The spoil of ages, would impervious choke 765
Their secret channels ; or, by slow degrees,
High as the hills protrude the swelling vales:
Old Ocean too, suck'd through the porous globe,
Had long ere now forsook his horrid bed,
And brought Deucalion's watery times again. 770

Say then, where lurk the vast eternal springs,
That, like creating Nature lie conceal'd
From mortal eye, yet with their lavish stores
Refresh the globe and all its joyous tribes !
O thou pervading Genius, given to man,

775 To trace the secrets of the dark abyss, 0, lay the mountains bare ! and wide display Their hidden structure to the astonish'd view ! Strip from the branchi ng Alps their piny load; The huge incuribrance of horrific woods

780

From Asian Taurus, from Imaus stretch'd
Athwart the roving Tartar's sullen bounds!
Give oponing Hemus to my searching eye,
And high Olympus pouring many a stream'
0, from the sounding summits of the north, 785
The Dorfrine hills, through Scandinavia rollid
To farthest Lapland and the frozen main ;
From lofty Caucasus far seen by those
Who in the Caspian and black Euxine toil ;
From cold Riphean rocks, which the wild Russ 790
Believes the stony girdle* of the world :
And all the dreadful mountains, wrapp'd in storm,
Whence wide Siberia draws her lonely floods ;
O, sweep the' eternal snows' Hung o'er the deep,
That ever works beneath his sounding base,

795
Bid Atias, propping Heaven, as poets feign,
His subterrancan wonders spread! unveil
The miny caverns, blazing on the day,
Of Abyssinia's cloud-compelling cliffs,
And of the bending Mountainst of the Moon !

800 O'ertopping all these giant sons of earth, Let the dire Andes, from the radiant line Stretch'd to the stormy seas that thunder round The southern pole, their hideous dceps unfold ! Amazing scene ! behold! the glooms disclose, 805 I see the rivers in their infant beds! Deep, deep I hear them labouring to get free, I see the leaning strata, artful ranged; The gaping fissures to receive the rains, The melting snows, and ever dripping fogs. 810 Strow'd bibulous above I see the sands, The pebbly gravel next, the layers then Of mingled moulds, of more retentive earths, The guiler'd rorks and mazy-running clefts;

* The Muscoviles call the Riphean Mountains Weliki Ca. menypuys; that is, the greul stony Girdle : because they suppose them to encompass the whole earth.

A range of mountains in Africa, that surround almost ail Monomotapa.

That while the stealing moisture they transmit, 815
Retard its motion and forbid its waste.
Beneath the incessant weeping of these drains,
I see the rocky siphons stretch'd immense,
The mighty reservoirs, of harden'd chalk,
Or stiff compacted clay, capacious formd.
O'erflowing thence, the congregated stores,
The crystal treasures of the liquid world,
Through the stirr’d sands a bubbling passage burst,
And, welling out, around the middle steep,
Or from the bottoms of the bosom’d hills,

825
In pure effusion flow. United, thus,
The' exhaling sun, the vapour-burden'd air,
The gelid mountains, that to rain condensed
These vapours in continual current draw,
And send them, o'er the fair-divided earth, 830
In bounteous rivers to the deep again,
A social commerce hold, and firm support
The full adjusted harmony of things.

When Autumn scatters his departing gleams,
Warnd of approaching Winter, gather'd, play 835
The swallow-people; and, toss'd wide around,
O'er the calın sky, in convolution swift,
The feather'd eddy floats: rejoicing once,
Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire ;
In clusters clung, bencath the mouldering bank, 840
And where, unpierced by frost, the cavern sweats.
Or rather into warmer climes convey'd,
With other kindred birds of season, there
They twitter cheerful, till the vernal months
Invite them welcome back : for, thronging, now 845
Innumerous wings are in commotion all.

Where the Rhine loses his majestic force
In Belgian plains, won from the raging deep,
By diligence amazing and the strong
Unconquerable hand of Liberty ;

850 The stork-assembly meets ; for many a day, Consulting deep, and various, ere they take