Then plac'd thee under genial skies,
Where flowers and shrubs spontaneous rise,
With richer fragrance, brighter dyes,
By her endued.
And bade thee pass thy happy hours,
In tamarind shades and palmy bowers,
Extracting from unfailing flowers,
Ambrosial food.
There, lovely bee-bird! may'st thou rove,
Through spicy vale, and citron grove,
And woo, and win, thy fluttering love
With plumes so bright.
There, rapid fly; more heard than seen,
'Mid orange boughs of polish'd green,
With glowing fruit, and flowers between
Of purest white.
There feed, and take thy balmy rest,
There weave thy little cotton nest,
And may no cruel hand molest
Thy peaceful life.
BY PATIENCE AND LABOUR, THE MULBERRY LEAF BECOMES SILK.
HITHER in half-blown garlands drest,
Advances the reluctant Spring,
And shrinking, feels her tender breast
Chill'd by Winter's snowy wing;
Nor wilt thou, alien as thou art, display,
Or leaf, or swelling bud, to meet the varying day.
Yet when the mother of the rose,
Bright June, leads on the glowing hours,
And from her hands, luxuriant throws
Her lovely groups of summer flowers,
Forth from thy brown and unclad branches shoot,
Scatter'd leaves and rudiments of fruit.
And soon those boughs, umbrageous, spread
A shelter from autumnal rays;
While, gay beneath thy shadowing head,
His gambols, happy childhood plays,
Eager, with crimson'd fingers, to amass,
Thy ruby fruit, that strews the turfy grass.
But where festoon'd with purple vines,
More freely grows thy graceful form,
And skreen'd by towering Appennines,
Thy foliage feeds the soft silk-worm;
Patience and industry protect thy shade,
And see, by human art, their care repaid.
They mark the threads, half viewless, wind,
That form the shining, light cocoon,
Now tinted as the orange rind,
Or paler than the pearly moon;
Then, at their summons, in the task engage,
Light, active youth, and tremulous old age.
The task which bids thy tresses green,
A thousand varied hues assume;
There, colour'd like the sky serene,
And mocking here the rose's bloom;
And now, in lucid volumes lightly roll'd,
Where purple clouds are starr'd with mimic gold.
But not because thy veined leaves,
Still to the grey-wing'd moth supply
The nutriment, whence patience weaves
The monarch's velvet canopy;
Through his high domes, a splendid radiance throws,
And binds the jewell'd circlet on his brows.
And not that thus transform'd, thy boughs,
Now, as a cestus, clasp the fair,
Now in her changeful vestment flow,
And fillet, now, her braided hair,
I praise thee: but that I behold in thee,
The triumph of unwearied industry.
'Tis that laborious millions owe
To thee the source of simple food In eastern climes; or where the Po
Reflects thee from his classic flood; While useless indolence may blush to view, What patience, industry, and art can do.
SAY, know'st thou why the beech delights the glade
With boughs extended, and a rounder shade?
While tow'ring firs in conic forms arise,
And with a pointed spear divide the skies?
Or, why again, the changing oak should shed
The yearly honours of his stately head,
While the distinguish'd yew is ever seen,
Unchang'd his branch, and permanent his green ?
Wanting the sun, why doth the Caltha fade,
Why does the cypress flourish in the shade?
The fig and date, why love they to remain,
In middle station, and an even plain?
While in the lower marsh the gourd is found,
And while the hill with olive shade is crown'd?
The twining jasmine and the blushing rose,
With lavish grace, their morning scents disclose?
The fragrant tuberose, and jonquil declare,
The stronger impulse of an evening air?
Whence has the tree, the shrub, the plant, the flower,
A various instinct, or a different power?
Why should one soil, one clime, one stream, one breath,
Raise this to strength, and sicken that to death? Whence does it happen that the plant, which well We name the sensitive, should move and feel? Whence know her leaves to answer her command, And with quick horror, fly the approaching hand? Along the sunny bank, or watery mead,
Ten thousand stalks their various blossoms spread.
Peaceful and lowly in their native soil,
They neither know to spin, nor care to toil;
Yet with confest magnificence, deride
Our vile attire, and impotence of pride.
SAY, who the various nations can declare,
That plough with busy wing, the peopled air?
These cleave the crumbling bark for insect food,
These dip their crooked beak in kindred blood.
Some haunt the rushy moor, the lonely woods,
Some bathe their painted plumage in the floods;
Some fly to man, his household gods implore,
And gather round his hospitable door;
Wait the known call, and find protection there,
From all the lesser tyrants of the air.
The tawny eagle seats his callow brood
High on the cliff, and feasts his young with blood. On Snowdon's rocks or Orkney's rude domain, Whose beetling cliffs o'erhang the western main, The royal bird his lonely kingdom forms,
Amidst the gathering clouds, and sullen storms:
Through the wide waste of air he darts his sight,
And holds his sounding pinions pois'd for flight;
With cruel eye, premeditates the war,
And marks his destin'd victim from afar.
Descending like a whirlwind to the ground,
His pinions like the rush of waters sound.
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