Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/115

And restless turn, and look around for Night;
Night is far off; and hotter hours approach.
Thrice happy he! that on the sunless side
Of a romantic mountain, forest-crown'd,
Beneath the whole collected shade reclines:460
Or in the gelid caverns, woodbine-wrought,
And fresh bedew'd with ever-spouting streams,
Sits coolly calm; while all the world without,
Unsatisfied, and sick, tosses in noon.
Emblem instructive of the virtuous Man,465
Who keeps his temper'd mind serene, and pure,
And every passion aptly harmoniz'd,
Amid a jarring world with vice inflam'd.

Welcome, ye shades! ye bowery thickets, hail!
Ye lofty pines! ye venerable oaks!470
Ye ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep!
Delicious is your shelter to the soul,
As to the hunted hart the sallying spring,
Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides
Laves, as he floats along the herbag'd brink,475
Cool, thro' the nerves, your pleasing comfort glides;
The heart beats glad; the fresh-expanded eye
And ear resume their watch; the sinews knit;
And life shoots swift thro' all the lightened limbs.

Around th' adjoining brook, that purls along480
The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock,
Now scarcely moving thro' a reedy pool,
Now starting to a sudden stream, and now
Gently diffus'd into a limpid plain;
A various groupe the herds and flocks compose,485
Rural confusion! On the grassy bank
Some ruminating lie; while others stand
Half in the flood, and often bending sip