Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/74

She pours ten thousand delicacies, herbs,
And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain,
Or beams that gave them birth: shall he, fair form!
Who wears sweet smiles, and looks erect on heaven,
E'er stoop to mingle with the prowling herd,355
And dip his tongue in gore? The beast of prey,
Blood-stain'd, deserves to bleed; but you, ye flocks
What have you done; ye peaceful people, what,
To merit death? you, who have given us milk
In luscious streams, and lent us your own coat360
Against the winter's cold? And the plain ox,
That harmless, honest, guileless animal,
In what has he offended? he whose toil,
Patient and ever-ready, clothes the land
With all the pomp of harvest? shall he bleed,365
And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands
Even of the clown he feeds? and that, perhaps,
To swell the riot of th' autumnal feast
Won by his labour? Thus the feeling heart
Would tenderly suggest: but 'tis enough,370
In this late age, adventurous, to have touch'd
Light on the numbers of the Samian sage.
High Heaven forbids the bold presumptuous strain,
Whose wisest will has fix'd us in a state
That must not yet to pure perfection rise.375

Now when the first soul torrent of the brooks,
Swell'd with the vernal rains, is ebb'd away;
And, whitening, down their mossy tinctur'd stream
Descends the billowy foam: now is the time
While yet the dark brown water aids the guile,380
To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly,
The rod fine-tapering with elastic spring,
Snatch'd, from the hoary steed the floating line,

And