The case was just the same with us here in the south; never were so many barren cows known as in the spring following that dreadful period. Whole dairies missed being in calf together.
At the end of March the face of the earth was naked to a surprising degree. Wheat hardly to be seen, and no signs of any grass; turnips all gone, and sheep in a starving way. All provisions rising in price. Farmers cannot sow for want of rain.—White.
ON THE DARK, STILL, DRY, WARM WEATHER,
OCCASIONALLY HAPPENING IN THE WINTER MONTHS.
- Th' imprison'd winds slumber within their caves
Fast bound: the fickle vane, emblem of change,
Wavers no more, long-settling to a point.
- All nature nodding seems composed: thick steams
From land, from flood up-drawn, dimming the day,
"Like a dark ceiling stand:" slow thro' the air
Gossamer floats, or stretch'd from blade to blade
The wavy net-work whitens all the field.
- Push'd by the weightier atmosphere, up springs
The ponderous Mercury, from scale to scale
Mounting, amidst the Torricellian tube.[1]
- While high in air, and pois'd upon his wings
Unseen, the soft, enamour'd wood-lark runs
Thro' all his maze of melody;—the brake
Loud with the black-bird's bolder note resounds.
- Sooth'd by the genial warmth, the cawing rook
Anticipates the spring, selects her mate,
Haunts her tall nest-trees, and with sedulous care
Repairs her wicker eyrie, tempest torn.
- The ploughman inly smiles to see upturn
His mellow glebe, best pledge of future crop:
With glee the gardener eyes his smoking beds:
- ↑ The Barometer.
