Page:Poems By Chauncy Hare Townshend.djvu/66

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ODE ON THE That balmy Summer's fragrant sigh Had breath'd a deeper, lovelier die; Matur'd in Autumu's mellow ray, His ruthless hand has snatch'd away, And o'er the ravag'd landscape pours, Imperiously, its own dark stores. Scarce a trace of verdure past Streaks the wide.forest, or the waste: Save where a ring of brighter sod Betrays the round the fairies trod; Save where the ivysspray has wound Some antique.oak's tall trunk around; Or darkly, thro' the clouded skies, Groups of unfading foliage rise: Alas, whose sad, sepulchral green Cheers not the desolated scene! Where late the reapers' busy train �Pil'd the rich heaps of golden grain, The scanty stubble all around Roughens o'er the. plunder'd ground, Or the ploughman's sturdy toil Bares the chill'd bosom of the soil. Wither'd are the few wild .flowers, That stream'd amid yon time-worn towers, And serv'd in livelier hues to dress Their dark and native ruggedness. ......... ?Google