"Yes, tuneful Damon, for our cares are short, Rising and falling with the cheerful day," Colin reply'd; " and pleasing weariness Soon our unaching heads to sleep inclines. Is it in cities so? where, poets tell, The cries of sorrow sadden all the streets, And the diseases of intemperate wealth. Alas, that any ills from wealth should rise!
"May the sweet nightingale on yonder spray, May this clear stream, these lawns, those snowwhite lambs,
Which, with a pretty innocence of look,
Skip on the green, and race in little troops;. May that great lamp, which sinks behind the hills, And streams around variety of lights, Recall them erring: this is Damon's wish.
"Huge Breaden's 19 stony summit once I After a kidling: Damon, what a scene! What various views unnumber'd spread beneath! Woods, towers, vales, caves, dells, cliffs, and torrent floods;
And here and there, between the spiry rocks, The broad flat sea. Far nobler prospects these, Than gardens black with smoke in dusty towns, Where stenchy vapours often blot the Sun: Yet, flying from his quiet, thither crowds Each greedy wretch for tardy-rising wealth, Which comes too late; that courts the taste in vain, Or nauseates with distempers. Yes, ye rich, Still, still be rich, if thus ye fashion life; And piping, careless, silly shepherds we, We silly shepherds, all intent to feed Our snowy flocks, and wind the sleeky fleece."
"Deem not, howe'er, our occupation mean," Damon reply'd, "while the Supreme accounts Well of the faithful shepherd rank'd alike With king and priest: they also shepherds are; For so th' All-seeing styles them, to remind Elated man, forgetful of his charge."
"But haste, begin the rites: see purple Eve Stretches her shadows: all ye nymphs and swains, Hither assemble. Pleas'd with honours due, Sabrina, guardian of the crystal flood,
Shall bless our cares, when she by moonlight clear Skims o'er the dales, and eyes our sleeping folds; Or in hoar caves around Plynlymmon's brow, Where precious minerals dart their purple gleams, Among her sisters she reclines; the lov'd Vaga 20, profuse of graces, Ryddol 20, rough, Blithe Ystwith 20, and Clevedoc 20, swift of foot; And mingles various seeds of flowers and herbs, In the divided torrents, e'er they burst [roll. Through the dark clouds, and down the mountain Nor taint-worm shall infect the yeaning herds, Nor penny-grass, nor spearwort's prisonous leaf." He said: with light fantastic toe the nymphs Thither assembled, thither every swain; And o'er the dimpled stream a thousand flowers, Pale lilies, roses, violets, and pinks,
Mix'd with the greens of burnet, mint, and thyme, And trefoil, sprinkled with their sportive arms.
Such custom bolds along th' irriguous vales, From Wreakin's brow to rocky Dolvoryn 2, Sabrina's early haunt, ere yet she fled
19 A bill on the borders of Montgomeryshire. so Rivers, the springs of which rise in the sides of Plynlymmon.
21A ruinous castle in Montgomeryshire, on the banks of the Severn.
The search of Guendolen, her stepdame proud, With envious hate enrag'd. The jolly cheer, Spread on a mossy bank, untouch'd abides, Till cease the rites: and now the mossy bank Is gaily circled, and the jolly cheer Dispers'd in copious measure; early fruits, And those of frugal store, in husk or rind; Steep'd grain, and curdled milk with dulcet cream Soft temper'd, in full merriment they quaff, And cast about their gibes; and some apace Whistle to roundelays: their little ones Look on delighted: while the mountain-woods, And winding valleys, with the various notes Of pipe, sheep, kine, and birds, and liquid brooks, Unite their echoes: near at hand the wide Majestic wave of Severn slowly rolls Along the deep-divided glebe: the flood, And trading bark with low contracted sail, Linger among the reeds and copsy banks To listen; and to view the joyous scene.
Recommendation of mercifulness to animals. Of the winding of wool. Diversity of wool in the fleece: skill in the assorting of it; particularly among the Dutch. The uses of each sort. Severe winters pernicious to the fleece. Directions to prevent their effects. Wool lightest in common-fields: inconveniencies of common-fields. Vulgar errours concerning the wool of England: its real excellencies; and directions in the choice. No good wool in cold or wet pastures: yet all pastures improveable; exemplified in the drainage of Bedford Level. Britain in ancient times not esteemed for wool. Countries esteemed for wool before the Argonautic expedition. Of that expedition, and its consequences. Countries afterwards esteemed for wool. The decay of arts and sciences in the barbarous ages: their revival, first at Venice. Countries noted for wool in the present times. Wool the best of all the various materials for clothing. The wool of our island peculiarly excellent, is the combing wool. Methods to prevent its exportation. Apology of the author for treating this subject. Bishop Blaize the inventor of wool-combing. Of the dyeing of wool. Few dyes the natural product of England. Necessity of trade for importing them. The advantages of trade, and its utility in the moral world; exemplified in the prosperity and ruin of the elder Tyre.
Now, of the sever'd lock begin the song, With various numbers, through the simple theme To win attention: this, ye shepherd swains, This is a labour. Yet, O Wray, if thou Cease not with skillful hand to point her way, The lark-wing'd Muse, above the grassy vale, And hills, and wood, shall, singing, soar aloft; And he, whom learning, wisdom, candour, grace, Who glows with all the virtues of his sire, Royston approve, and patronize the strain.
Through all the brute creation, none, as sheep, To lordly man such ample tribute pay.
For him their udders yield nectareous streams:. For him their downy vestures they resign; For him they spread the feast: ah! ne'er may he Glory in wants, which doom to pain and death His blameless fellow-creatures. Let disease, Let wasted hunger, by destroying live; And the permission use with trembling thanks, Meekly reluctant: 't is the brute beyond: And gluttons ever murder when they kill. E'en to the reptile every cruel deed Is high impiety. Howe'er not all, Not of the sanguinary tribe are all;
All are not savage. Come, ye gentle swains, Like Brama's healthy sons on Indus' banks, Whom the pure stream and garden fruits sustain, Ye are the sons of Nature; your mild hands Are innocent: ye, when ye shear, relieve. Come, gentle swains, the bright unsully'd locks Collect: alternate songs shall soothe your cares, And warbling music break from every spray. Be faithful: and the genuine locks alone Wrap round: nor alien flake nor pitch enfold: Stain not your stores with base desire to add Fallacious weight: nor yet, to mimic those, Minute and light, of sandy Urchinfield 22, Lessen, with subtle artifice, the fleece: Equal the fraud. Nor interpose delay, Lest busy ether through the open wool Debilitating pass, and every film Ruffle and sully with the valley's dust. Guard too from moisture, and the fretting moth Pernicious: she, in gloomy shade conceal'd, Her labyrinth cuts, and mocks the comber's care. But in loose locks of fells she most delights, And feeble fleeces of distemper'd sheep, Whither she hastens, by the morbid scent Allur'd; as the swift eagle to the fields Of slaughtering war or carnage: such apart Keep for their proper use. Our ancestors Selected such, for hospitable beds To rest the stranger, or the gory chief, From battle or the chase of wolves return'd. When many-colour'd Evening sinks behind The purple woods and hills, and opposite Rises, full-orb'd, the silver harvest-moon, To light th' unwearied farmer late afield His scatter'd sheaves collecting; then expect The artists, bent on speed, from populous Leeds, Norwich, or Froome; they traverse every plain, And every dale, where farm or cottage smokes: Reject them not; and let the season's price Win thy soft treasures: let the bulky wain Through dusty roads roll nodding; or the bark, That silently adown the cerule stream Glides with white sails, dispense the downy freight To copsy villages on either side, And spiry towns, where ready Diligence, The grateful burthen to receive, awaits, Like strong Briareus, with his hundred hands. In the same fleece diversity of wool Grows intermingled, and excites the care Of curious skill to sort the several kinds. But in this subtle science none exceed Th' industrious Belgians, to the work who guide Each feeble hand of Want: their spacious domes With boundless hospitality receive
Each nation's outcasts: there the tender eye May view the maim'd, the blind, the lame, employ'd,
"The country about Ross, in Herefordshire.
And unrejected age; e'en childhood there Its little fingers turning to the toil Delighted: nimbly, with habitual speed, They sever lock from lock, and long and short, And soft and rigid, pile in several heaps. This the dusk hatter asks: another shines, Tempting the clothier; that the hosier seeks; The long bright lock is apt for airy stuffs; But often it deceives the artist's care, Breaking unuseful in the steely comb: For this long spungy wool no more increase Receives, while Winter petrifies the fields: The growth of Autumu stops: and what tho' Spring Succeeds with rosy finger, and spins on The texture? yet in vain she strives to link The silver twine to that of Autumn's hand. Be then the swain advis'd to shield his flocks From Winter's deadening frosts and whelming Let the loud tempest rattle on the roof, [snows: While they, secure within, warm cribs enjoy, And swell their fleeces equal to the worth Of cloth'd Apulian 23, by soft warmth improv'd: Or let them inward heat and vigour find, By food of cole or turnip, hardy plants. Besides, the lock of one continued growth Imbibes a clearer and more equal dye.
But lightest wool is theirs, who poorly toil, Through a dull round, in unimproving farms Of common-fields: enclose, enclose, ye swains; Why will you joy in common-field, where pitch, Noxious to woo!, must stain your motley flock, To mark your property? The mark dilates, Enters the flake depreciated, defil'd, Unfit for beauteous tint: besides, in fields Promiscuous held, all culture languishes; The glebe, exhausted, thin supply receives; Dull waters rest upon the rushy flats And barren furrows: none the rising grove There plants for late posterity, nor hedge To shield the flock, nor copse for cheering fire; And, in the distant village, every hearth Devours the grassy sward, the verdant food Of injur'd herds and flocks, or what the plough Should turn and moulder for the bearded grain; Pernicious habit, drawing gradual on Increasing beggary, and Nature's frowns. Add too, the idle pilferer easier there Eludes detection, when a lamb or ewe From intermingled flocks he steals; or when, With loosen'd tether of his horse or cow, The milky stalk of the tall green-ear'd corn, The year's slow-ripening fruit, the anxious hope Of his laborious neighbour, he destroys.
There are, who over-rate our spungy stores, Who deem that Nature grants no clime, but ours, To spread upon its fields the dews of Heaven, And feed the silky fleece; that card, nor comb, The hairy wool of Gaul cau e'er subdue, To form the thread, and mingle in the loom, Unless a third from Britain swell the heap. Illusion all; though of our sun and air Not trivial is the virtue: nor their fruit, Upon our snowy flocks, of small esteem: The grain of brightest tincture none so well Imbibes the wealthy Gobelins must to this Bear witness, and the costliest of their looms.
23 The shephers of Apulia, Tarentum, and Attica, used to clothe their sheep with skins, to preserve and improve their fleeces.
And though, with hue of crocus or of rose, No power of subtle food, or air, or soil, Can dye the living fleece; yet 't will avail To note their influence in the tingeing vase. Therefore from herbage of old-pastur'd plains, Chief from the matted turf of azure marle, Where grow the whitest locks, collect thy stores. Those fields regard not, through whose recent turf The miry soil appears: not e'en the streams Of Yare, or silver Stroud, can purify Their frequent-sully'd fleece; nor what rough winds, Keen-biting on tempestuous hill, inbrown.
Yet much may be perform'd, to check the force Of Nature's rigour: the high heath, by trees Warm-shelter'd, may despise the rage of storms: Moors, bogs, and weeping fens, may learn to smile, And leave in dykes their soon-forgotten tears. Labour and Art will every aim achieve Of noble bosoms. Bedford Level 24, erst A dreary pathless waste, the coughing flock Was wont with hairy fleeces to deform; And, smiling with her lure of summe: flowers, The heavy ox, vain-struggling, to ingulph; Till one, of that high-honour'd patriot name, Russel, arose, who drain'd the rushy fen, Confin'd the waves, bade groves and gardens bloom, And through his new creation led the Onze, And gentle Camus, silver-winding streams; Godlike beneficence; from chaos drear To raise the garden and the shady grove!
But see lerne's moors and hideous bogs, Immeasurable tract. The traveller Slow tries his mazy step on th' yielding tuft, Shuddering with fear: e'en such perfidious wilds, By labour won, have yielded to the comb The fairest length of wool. See Deeping fens, And the long lawns of Bourn. 'Tis Art and Toil Gives Nature value, multiplies her stores, Varies, improves, creates: 't is Art and Toil Teaches her woody hills with fruits to shine, The pear and tasteful apple; decks with flowers And foodful pulse the fields, that often rise, Admiring to behold their furrows wave With yellow corn. What changes cannot Toil With patient Art, effect? There was a time, When other regions were the swains' delight, And shepherdless Britannia's rushy vales, Inglorious, neither trade nor labour knew, But of rude baskets, homely rustic geer, Woven of the flexile willow; till, at length, The plains of Sarum open'd to the hand Of patient Culture, and, o'er sinking woods, High Cotswold show'd her summits. Urchinfield, And Lemster's crofts, beneath the pheasant's brake, Long lay unnoted. Toil new pasture gives; And, in the regions oft of active Gaul, O'er lessening vineyards spreads the growing turf. In eldest times, when kings and hardy chiefs In bleating sheepfolds met, for purest wool Phoenicia's hilly tracts were most renown'd, And fertile Syria's and Judæa's land, Hermon, and Seir, and Hebron's brooky sides: Twice with the murex' crimson hue they ting'd The shining fleeces: hence their gorgeous wealth; And hence arose the walls of ancient Tyre.
Next busy Colchis, bless'd with frequent rains, And lively verdure (who the lucid stream Of Phasis boasted, and a portly race
Of fair inhabitants), improv'd the fleece; When, o'er the deep by flying Phryxus brought, The fam'd Thessalian ram enrich'd her plains.
This, rising Greece with indignation view'd, And youthful Jason an attempt conceiv'd Lofty and bold: along Peneus' banks, Around Olympus' brows, the Muses' haunts, He rous'd the brave, to re-demand the fleece, Attend, ye British swains, the ancient song. From every region of Ægea's shore The brave assembled; those illustrious twins, Castor and Pollux; Orpheus, tuneful bard; Zetes and Calais, as the wind in speed; Strong Hercules, and many a chief renown'd.
On deep lolcos' sandy shore they throng'd, Gleaming in armour, ardent of exploits; And soon, the laurel cord, and the huge stone Up-lifting to the deck, unmoor'd the bark; Whose keel, of wondrous length, the skilful hand Of Argus fashion'd for the proud attempt; And in th' extended keel a lofty mast Up-rais'd, and sails full-swelling; to the chiefs Unwonted objects: now first, now they learn'd Their bolder steerage over ocean wave, Led by the golden stars, as Chiron's art Had mark'd the sphere celestial. Wide abroad Expands the purple deep: the cloudy isles, Scyros and Scopelos, and Icos, rise,
And Halonesos: soon huge Lemnos heaves Her azure bead above the level brine, Shakes off her mists, and brightens all her cliffs: While they, her flattering creeks and opening Cautious approaching, in Myrina's port [bowers Cast out the cabled stone upon the strand. Next, to the Mysian shore they shape their course, But with too eager haste: in the white foam His oar Alcides breaks; howe'er, not long The chance detains; he springs upon the shore, And, rifting from the roots a tapering pine, Renews his stroke. Between the threatening towers Of Hellespont they ply the rugged surge, To Hero's and Leander's ardent love Fatal then smooth Propontis' widening wave, That like a glassy lake expands, with hills, Hills above hills, and gloomy woods, begirt. And now the Thracian Bosphorus they dare, Till the Symplegades, tremendous rocks, Threaten approach; but they, unterrify'd, Through the sharp-pointed cliffs and thundering floods
Cleave their bold passage; nathless by the crags And torrents sorely shatter'd as the strong Eagle or vulture, in th' entangling net
[hind. | Involv'd, breaks through, yet leaves his plumes be- Thus, through the wide waves, their slow way they To Thynia's hospitable isle. The brave [force Pass many perils, and to fame by such Experience rise. Refresh'd, again they speed From cape to cape, and view unnumber'd streams, Halys, with hoary Lycus, and the mouths Of Asparus and Glaucus, rolling swift To the broad deep their tributary waves; Till in the long-sought harbour they arrive Of golden Phasis. Foremost on the strand Jason advanc'd: the deep capacious bay, The crumbling terrace of the marble port, Wondering he view'd, and stately palace-domes, Pavilions proud of luxury; around,
In every glittering hall, within, without, O'er all the timbrel-sounding squares and streets,
Nothing appear'd but luxury, and crowds Sunk deep in riot. To the public weal Attentive none he found: for he, their chief Of shepherds, proud Aëtes, by the name Sometimes of king distinguish'd, 'gan to slight The shepherd's trade, and turn to song and dance: E'en Hydrus ceas'd to watch; Medea's songs Of joy, and rosy youth, and beauty's charms, With magic sweetness lull'd his cares asleep, Till the bold heroes grasp'd the golden fleece. Nimbly they wing'd the bark, surrounded soon By Neptune's friendly waves: secure they speed O'er the known seas, by every guiding cape, With prosperous return. The myrtle shores, And glassy mirror of lolcos' lake, With loud acclaim receiv'd them. Every vale, And every hillock, touch'd the tuneful stops Of pipes unnumber'd, for the ram regain'd.
Thus Phasis lost his pride: his slighted nymphs Along the withering dales and pastures mourn'd; The trade-ship left his streams; the merchant His desert borders; each ingenious art, [shunn'd Trade, Liberty, and Affluence, all retir'd, And left to Want and Servitude their seats: Vile successors! and gloomy Ignorance Following like dreary Night, whose sable hand Hangs on the purple skirts of flying Day.
Sithence the fleeces of Arcadian plains, And Attic, and Thessalian, bore esteem; And those in Grecian colonies dispers'd, Caria and Doris, and Iönia's coast,
And fam'd Tarentum, where Galesus' tide, Rolling by ruins hoar of ancient towns, Through solitary valleys seeks the sea. Or green Altinum, by an hundred Alps High-crown'd, whose woods and snowy peaks aloft Shield her low plains from the rough northern blast. Those too of Botica's delicious fields, With golden fruitage bless'd of highest taste, What need I name? The Turditanian tract, Or rich Coraxus, whose wide looms unroll'd The finest webs? where scarce a talent weigh'd A ram's equivalent. Then only tin To late improv'd Britannia gave renown.
Lo the revolving course of mighty Time, Who loftiness abases, tumbles down Olympus' brow, and lifts the lowly vale. Where is the majesty of ancient Rome, The throng of heroes in her splendid streets, The snowy vest of peace, or purple robe, Slow trail'd triumphal? Where the Attic fleece, And Tarentine, in warmest litter'd cotes, Or sunny meadows, cloth'd with costly care? All in the solitude of ruin lost,
War's horrid carnage, vain Ambition's dust.
Long lay the mournful realms of elder Fame In gloomy desolation, till appear'd Beauteous Venetia, first of all the nymphs, Who from the melancholy waste emerg'd: In Adria's gulf her clotted locks she lav'd, And rose another Venus: each soft joy, Fach aid of life, her busy wit restor❜d; Science reviv'd, with all the lovely Arts, And all the Graces. Restituted Trade To every virtue lent his helping stores, And cheer'd the vales around, again the pipe, And bleating flocks, awak'd the cheerful lawn. The glossy fleeces now of prime esteem Soft Asia boasts, where lovely Casimere, Within a lofty mound of circling hills,
Hills, lawns, and winding streams; a region term'd The Paradise of Indus. Next, the plains Of Lahor, by that arbour stretch'd immense, Through many a realm, to Agra, the proud throne Of India's worshipp'd prince, whose lust is law: Remote dominions; nor to ancient Fame, Nor modern known, till public-hearted Roe, Faithful, sagacious, active, patient, brave, Led to their distant climes adventurous Trade. Add too the silky wool of Libyan lands, Of Caza's bowery dales, and brooky Caus, Where lofty Atlas spreads his verdant feet, While in the clouds his hoary shoulders bend. Next proud Iberia glories in the growth Of high Castile, and mild Segovian glades.
And beauteous Albion, since great Edgar chas'd The prowling wolf, with many a lock appears Of silky lustre; chief, Siluria, thine; Thine, Vaga, favour'd stream; from sheep minute On Cambria bred: a pound o'erweighs a fleece. Gay Epsom's too, and Banstead's, and what gleams On Vecta's isle, that shelters Albion's fleet, With all its thunders: or Salopian stores, Those which are gather'd in the fields of Clun: High Cotswold also 'mong the shepherd swains Is oft remember'd, though the greedy plough Preys on its carpet: He 25, whose rustic Muse O'er heath and craggy holt her wing display'd, And sung the bosky bourns of Alfred's shires, Has favour'd Cotswold with luxuriant praise. Need we the levels green of Lincoln note, Or rich Leicestra's marly plains, for length Of whitest locks and magnitude of fleece Peculiar; envy of the neighbouring realms? But why recount our grassy lawns alone, While e'en the tillage of our cultur'd plains, With bossy turnip, and luxuriant cole, Learns through the circling year their flocks to feed! Ingenious Trade! to clothe the naked world, Her soft materials, not from sheep alone, From various animals, reeds, trees, and stones, Collects sagacious: in Euboa's isle
A wondrous rock 26 is found, of which are woven Vests incombustible: Batavia, flax; Siam's warm marish yields the fissile cane; Soft Persia, silk; Balasor's shady hills, Tough bark of trees; Peruvian Pito, grass; And every sultry clime the snowy down Of cotton, bursting from its stubborn shell To gleam amid the verdure of the grove. With glossy hair of Tibet's shagged goat Are light tiaras wove, that wreathe the head, And airy float behind: the beaver's flix Gives kindliest warmth to weak enervate limbs, When the pale blood slow rises through the veins. Still shall o'er all prevail the shepherd's stores, For numerous uses known: none yield such warmth, Such beauteous hues receive, so long endure; So pliant to the loom, so various, none.
E'en in the new Columbian world appears The woolly covering: Apacheria's 27 glades, And Canses' 27, echo to the pipes and flocks Offoreign swains. While Time shakes down his sands, And works continued change, be none secure : Quicken your labours, brace your slackening nerves, Ye Britons; nor sleep careless on the lap Of bounteous Nature; she is elsewhere kind. See Mississippi lengthen-on her lawns, Propitious to the shepherds: see the sheep 28 Of fertile Arica 29, like camels form'd; Which bear huge burthens to the sea-beat shore, And shine with fleeces soft as feathery down.
Coarse Bothnic locks are not devoid of use; They clothe the mountain carl, or mariner Labouring at the wet shrouds, or stubborn helm, While the loud billows dash the groaning deck. All may not Stroud's or Taunton's vestures wear; Nor what, from fleece Ratæan 3o, mimic flowers Of rich Damascus : many a texture bright Of that material in Prætorium 31 woven, Or in Norvicum, cheats the curious eye. If any wool peculiar to our isle
Is given by Nature, 't is the comber's lock, The soft, the snow-white, and the long-grown flake. Hither be turn'd the public's wakeful eye, This golden fleece to guard, with strictest watch, From the dark hand of pilfering Avarice, Who, like a spectre, haunts the midnight hour, When Nature wide around him lies supine And silent, in the tangles soft involv'd Of death-like sleep: he then the moment marks, While the pale Moon illumes the trembling tide, Speedy to lift the canvass, bend the oar, And waft his thefts to the perfidious foe.
Happy the patriot, who can teach the means To check his frauds, and yet untroubled leave Trade's open channels. Would a generous aid To honest toil, in Cambria's hilly tracts, Or where the Lune32 or Coker33 wind their streams, Be found sufficient? Far, their airy fields, Far from infectious luxury arise.
O might their mazy dales, and mountain sides With copious fleeces of lerne shine, And gulphy Caledonia, wisely bent On wealthy fisheries and flaxen webs; Then would the sister realms, amid their seas, Like the three Graces in harmonious fold, By mutual aid enhance their various charms, And bless remotest climes-To this lov'd end, Awake, Benevolence; to this lov'd end, Strain all thy nerves, and every thought explore. Far, far away, whose passions would immure, In your own little hearts, the joys of life; (Ye worms of pride) for your repast alone, Who claim all Nature's stores, wood, waters, meads, All her profusion; whose vile hands would grasp The peasant's scantling, the weak widow's mite, And in the sepulchre of Self entomb Whate'er ye can, whate'er ye cannot use. Know, for superior ends th' Almighty Power
(The Power, whose tender arms embrace the worm) Breathes o'er the foodful earth the breath of life, And forms us manifold; allots to each His fair peculiar; wisdom, wit, and strength; Wisdom, and wit, and strength, in sweet accord, To aid, to cheer, to counsel, to protect, And twist the mighty bond. Thus feeble man, With man united, is a nation strong; Builds towery cities, satiates every want, And makes the seas profound, and forests wild, The gardens of his joys. Man, each man 's born For the high business of the public good.
For me, 't is mine to pray, that men regard Their occupations with an honest heart, And cheerful diligence: like the useful bee, To gather for the hive not sweets alone, But wax, and each material; pleas'd to find Whate'er may soothe distress, and raise the fall'n, In life's rough race: O be it as my wish! 'T is mine to teach th' inactive hand to reap Kind Nature's bounties, o'er the globe diffus'd. For this, I wake the weary hours of rest; With this desire, the merchant 1 attend; By this impell'd, the shepherd's hut I seek, And, as he tends his flock, his lectures hear Attentive, pleas'd with pure simplicity, And rules divulg'd beneficent to sheep: Or turn the compass o'er the painted chart, To mark the ways of traffic; Volga's stream, Cold Hudson's cloudy streights, warm Afric's cape, Latium's firm roads, the Ptolemcar. fosse, And China's long canals; those noble works, Those high effects of civilizing trade, Employ me, sedulons of pubc weal: Yet not unmindful of my sacred charge; But also mindful, thus devising good,
At vacant seasons, oft; when evening mil d Purples the valleys, and the shepherd counts His flock, returning to the quiet fold, With dumb complacence: for religion, this, To give our every comfort to distress, And follow virtue with a humble mind; This pure religion. Thus, in elder time, The reverend Blasius wore his leisure hours, And slumbers, broken oft: till, fill'd at length With inspiration, after various thought And trials manifold, his well-known voice Gather'd the poor, and o'er Vulcanian stoves, With tepid lees of oil, and spiky comb, (length, Show'd how the fleece might stretch to greater And cast a glossier whiteness. Wheels went round; Matrons and maids with songs reliev'd their toils; And every loom receiv'd the softer yarn. What poor, what widow, Blasius, did not bless Thy teaching band? thy bosom, like the morn, Opening its wealth? What nation did not seek, Of thy new-model'd wool, the curious webs?
Hence the glad cities of the loom his name Honour with yearly festals: through their streets The pomp, with tuneful sounds, and order just, Denoting labour's happy progress, moves, Procession slow and solemn: first the rout;
27 Provinces in Louisiana, on the western side of Then servient youth, and magisterial eld;
28 These sheep are called Guanapos.
29 A province of Peru.
30 The fleeces of Leicestershire.
31 Coventry.
A river in Cumberland,
33 A river in Lancashire.
Each after each, according to his rank, His sway, and office, in the common weal; And to the board of smiling Plenty's stores Assemble, where delicious cates and fruits Of every clime are pil'd; and with free hand, Toil only tastes the feasts, by nerveless ease Unrelish'd. Various mirth and song resound;
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