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O DE

ON THE

RING.

O! where the rofy-bofom'd Hours

Lo

appear,

Fair VENUS' train
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckow's note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whifp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.

Where-e'er the oak's thick branches ftretch

A broader browner shade ;

Where-e'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade*,

Befide fome water's rushy brink
With me the mufe fhall fit, and think
(At ease reclin'd in rustic state)

How vain the ardour of the Crowd,
How low, how little are the Proud,
How indigent the Great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose;

Yet hark! how thro' the peopled air

The bufy murmur glows!

The infect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied fpring,
And float amid the liquid noon +:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,

--- a
a bank,

O'er-canopied with lufcious woodbine.

Shaky. Midf. Nig. Dream.

+ " Nare per aeftatem liquidam...'

Virg, Georg, lib. iv,

Some fhew their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the fun *.

To Contemplation's fober eye +
Such is the race of Man;

And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.

Alike the Bufy and the Gay

But flutter thro' life's little day,
In Fortune's varying colours dreft;
Brush'd by the hand of rough Mifchance,
Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance
They leave in duft to rest.

Methinks, I hear in accents low,
The sportive kind reply;

------fporting with quick glance

hew'd to the fun their waved coats drop'd

with gold.

Milt. Par. Loft. Book vii.

While infects from the threshold preach, &c.

M. Green, in the Grotto.

Dodfley's Mifcel, Vol. V. p. 161.

Poor Moralift! and what art thou?
A folitary fly!

"Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive haft thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hafty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy fun is fet, thy fpring is gone------
We frolic, while 'tis May.

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