THE ARGUMENT. The subject proposed. Inscribed to the Countess of HARTFORD, The Season is described as it affects the various parts of Nature, ascending from the lower to the higher; with digressions arising from the subject. Its influence on inanimate Matter, on Vegetables, on brute Animals, and last on Man; concluding with a dissuasive from the wild and irregular passion of Love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind. SPRIN G. COME, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come, And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, O HARTFORD, fitted or to shine in courts And see where surly Winter passes off, Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts! His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale; While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch, Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. As yet the trembling year is unconfirm❜d, And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze, Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets Deform the day delightless: so that scarce The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulpht To shake the sounding marsh; or from the shore The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath, Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them thin, Forth fly the tepid airs; and unconfin'd, Relenting Nature, and his lusty steers Drives from their stalls, to where the well-used plough White through the neighb'ring fields the sower stalks, The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene. Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious Man |