AUTUMN.

DERMODY.

NOW when the sun with less enamour'd beam,
Lights the faint blushes of the fading year,
Oh teach me, matron staid,

To woo thy tender calm!

For much I love the languish of thine eye,
Luxurious stream'd o'er each congenial scene,
That lends to all around

A delicate repose;

Whether thy evening clouds their skirts unfold Of paler purple, through the forest-gloom Effusing partial streaks

From their ethereal glow;

Or the blue bosom of the tranquil lake,
Where silence sits amid the dusky stream,
Scarce undulating, heaves,

Thy chasten'd smile beneath:

Thy auburn locks with dewy woodbine drest,
Ere yet the sere wreath withers on thy brow,
Or brumal blasts deform

Oft, mid the leafy wilderness of shade,
Through its obscure recesses inoaning deep,
But yet without a wind,
Conduct my devious step.

Nor seldom let me catch the softer dash
Of distant water, from some willowy sluice,
Prone to its pebbled bed,
Bounding in faery fall;

Or curfew's slumb'rous swing from village spire:
Or hollow hum of whisp'ring voices near,
Homeward returning late;

Or watch-dog's sullen bay.

Meanwhile the mellow swell of past'ral flute,
May from her thicket lure the Attic bird,
With one sad-closing strain

To harmonize the whole.

Then will the muse, (the muse, thy handmaid fair,) When all the hamlet's hush'd in silence sweet, Resume her solemn song,

Her song of grateful praise:

For, ever in thy rear is Genius seen,
Inly conversing with himself; and then
Contrasting with each sight,

The creatures of the mind.

Thine wisdom too; and rapt devotion thine,
List'ning the sphery chime with pauseful ear;
Sage meditation still,

And eagle-pinion'd thought.

While those too, brighter yet, that troop behind,-
Content, blythe child of labour well repaid,
(Who laughing leads along
Brown harvest's buxom form,

The poppy nodding mid her sheafy crest,)
And vintage flush'd with his own ruddy grape,—
Complete thy festal train,
Superior to assault;

Well, loveliest Autumn, mayst thou mock the rage
Of Winter, surly dotard, following fierce,

With frozen breath malign,

To blight thy later blooms;

Nor need'st thou yet the full voluptuous glare
Of summer envy, more divinely drest

By nature's lib'ral hand

In plenitude and peace.

WINTER, a Dirge.

BURNS.

THE wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;

Or, the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:

While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;

And bird and beast in covert rest,

And pass the heartless day.

"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"*

The joyless winter-day,

Let others fear, to me more dear

Than all the pride of May:

The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,

My griefs it seems to join,

The leafless trees my fancy please,

Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Pow'r Supreme, whose mighty scheme

These woes of mine fulfil,

Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,

Because they are Thy will!

Then all I want (O, do thou grant

This one request of mine!) Since to enjoy thou dost deny, Assist me to resign.

* Dr. Young.

GRONGAR HILL.

DYER.

SILENT Nymph, with curious eye!
Who, the purple ev'ning, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man;
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings;
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale;
Come, with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy sister Muse:
Now, while Phoebus riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky!
Grongar hill invites my song,

Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells,
Sweetly musing, quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So oft I have, the even still,
At the fountain of a rill,
Sat upon the flow'ry bed,

With my hand beneath my head:
And stray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood,

Over mead and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill, Till contemplation had her fill.

About his chequer'd sides I wind, And leave his brooks and meads behind, And groves and grottos where I lay, And vistoes shooting beams of day; Wider and wider spreads the vale; As circles on a smooth canal: The mountains round, (unhappy fate, Sooner or later, of all height!)

Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise:

Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly-risen hill.

Now I gain the mountain's brow,
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene,
But the gay, the open scene,
Does the face of nature show,
In all the hues of heaven's bow!
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.

Old castles on the cliffs arise
Proudly tow'ring in the skies!
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires!
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads!
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks;
And glitters on the broken rocks!

Below me trees unnumber'd rise,
Beautiful in various dyes:
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir that taper grows,
The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs.
And beyond the purple grove,

Haunt of Phillis, queen of love?

Gaudy as the op'ning dawn,

Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wand'ring eye;

Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,
His sides are cloth'd with waving wood,
Ancient towers crown his brow,

That cast an awful look below;