When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days,
And Libra weighs in equal scales the year;
From heaven's high cope fierce effulgence shook 25
Of parting Summer, a serener blue,
With golden light enliven'd, wide invests
The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise,
Sweet-beam'd, and shedding oft thro' lucid clouds
A pleasing calm; while broad, and brown, below 30
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain;
A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow. 35
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;
The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By fits effulgent gilds th' illumin'd field,
And black by fits the shadows sweep along.
A gaily-checker'd heart-expanding view, 40
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.
These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power!
Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain;
Yet the kind source of every gentle art, 45
And all the soft civility of life:
Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast,
Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods,
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various seeds of art deep in the mind 50
Implanted, and profusely pour'd around
Materials infinite; but idle all.
Still unexerted, in th' unconscious breast,
Slept the lethargic powers; corruption still,
Voracious, swallowed what the liberal hand 55
Of bounty scatter'd o'er the savage year:
And
