Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed
  In full luxuriance to the sighing gales,
  Where the deer rustle through the twining brake,
  And the birds sing concealed.  At once, arrayed
  In all the colours of the flushing year
  By Nature’s swift and secret-working hand,
  The garden glows, and fills the liberal air
  With lavished fragrance, while the promised fruit
  Lies yet a little embryo, unperceived,
  Within its crimson folds.  Now from the town,
  Buried in smoke and sleep and noisome damps,
  Oft let me wander o’er the dewy fields,
  Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops
  From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze
  Of sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk;
  Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend
  Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains,
  And see the country, far diffused around,
  One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower
  Of mingled blossoms, where the raptured eye
  Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath
  The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.

* * * * *

  What is this mighty breath, ye sages, say,
  That in a powerful language, felt not heard,
  Instructs the fowl of heaven, and through their breast
  These arts of love diffuses?  What but God? 
  Inspiring God! who boundless spirit all,
  And unremitting energy, pervades,
  Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole. 
  He ceaseless works alone, and yet alone
  Seems not to work; with such perfection framed
  Is this complex, stupendous scheme of things. 
  But, though concealed, to every purer eye
  Th’ informing author in his works appears: 
  Chief, lovely Spring, in thee, and thy soft scenes,
  The smiling God is seen; while water, earth,
  And air attest his bounty; which exalts
  The brute creation to this finer thought,
  And annual melts their undesigning hearts
  Profusely thus in tenderness and joy,

  Still let my song a nobler note assume,
  And sing th’ infusive force of Spring on man,
  When heaven and earth, as if contending, vie
  To raise his being, and serene his soul. 
  Can he forbear to join the general smile
  Of nature?  Can fierce passions vex his breast,
  While every gale is peace, and every grove
  Is melody?  Hence from the bounteous walks
  Of flowing Spring, ye sordid sons of earth,
  Hard, and unfeeling of another’s woe;
  Or only lavish to yourselves; away! 
  But come, ye generous minds, la whose wide thought,
  Of all his works, creative bounty burns
  With warmest beam!

  FROM AUTUMN

  [THE PLEASING SADNESS OF THE DECLINING YEAR]

  But see! the fading many-coloured woods,
  Shade deepening over shade, the country round
  Imbrown, a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,