Allur'd; as the fwift eagle to the fields

Of flaughtering war or carnage: such apart
Keep for their proper ufe. Our ancestors
Selected fuch, for hofpitable beds
To reft the stranger, or the gory chief,
From battle or the chace of wolves return'd.
When many-colour'd Evening finks behind
The purple woods and hills, and opposte
Rifes, full-orb'd, the filver 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 feafon's price
Win thy foft treasures: let the bulky wain
Through dusty roads roll nodding; or the bark,
That filently adown the cerule stream

Glides with white fails, difpenfe the downy freight

To copfy villages op either fide,

And fpiry towns, where ready diligence,

The grateful burden to receive, awaits,

Like ftrong Briareus, with his hundred hands.
In the fame fleece diverfity of wool
Grows intermingled, and excites the care
Of curious kill to fort the feveral kinds.
But in this fubtle science none exceed

Th' induftrious Belgians, to the work who guide
Each feeble hand of want: their fpacious domes
With boundless hofpitality receive

Each

Each nation's outcasts: there the tender eye

May view the maim'd, the blind, the lame, employ'a,
And unrejected age; ev'n childhood there

Its little fingers turning to the toil
Delighted: nimbly, with habitual speed,
They fever-lock from lock, and long, and short,
And foft, and rigid, pile in feveral heaps.
This the dusk hatter afks; another fhines,
Tempting the clothier; that the hofier 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 fpungy wool no more increase
Receives, while Winter petrifies the fields:

The growth of Autumn ftops: and what though Spring
Succeeds with rofy finger, and fpins on

The texture? yet in vain the strives to link
The filver twine to that of Autumn's hand.
Be then the fwain advis'd to fhield his flocks
From Winter's deadening frosts and whelming nows:
Let the loud tempeft rattle on the roof,

While they, fecure within, warm cribs enjoy,
And fwell their fleeces, equal to the worth

Of cloath'd Apulian*, by foft warmth improv'd :
Or let them inward heat and vigor find,

By food of cole or turnep, hardy plants.

Befides,

The fhepherds of Apulia, Tarentum, and Attica, fed to cloath their fheep with fkins, to preserve and improve their fleeces.

Befides, the lock of one continued growth.
Imbibes a clearer and more equal dye.

But lighteft. wool is theirs, who poorly toil,
Through a dull round, in unimproving farms
Of common-fields: inclofe, inclose, ye fwains;
Why will you joy in common-field, where pitch,
Noxious to wool, must stain your motley flock,
To mark your property? The mark dilates,
Enters the flake depreciated, defil'd,

Unfit for beauteous tint: befides, in fields
Promifcuous held, all culture languishes ;
The glebe, exhaufted, thin fupply receives;
Dull waters reft upon the rushy flats

And barren furrows: none the rifing grove
There plants for late pofterity, nor hedge
To fhield the flock, nor copfe for chearing fire;
And, in the distant village, every hearth
Devours the graffy fwerd, 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 loofen'd tether of his horse or cow,
The milky stalk of the tall green-ear'd corn,
The year's flow-ripening fruit, the anxious hope
Of his laborious neighbour, he deftroys.

There

:

There are, who over-rate our fpungy stores,
Who deem that Nature grants no clime, but ours,
To spread upon its fields the dews of heaven,
And feed the filky fleece; that card, nor comb,
The hairy wool of Gaul can e'er fubdue,
To form the thread, and mingle in the loom,
Unless a third from Britain fwell the heap:
Illusion all; though of our fun and air
Not trivial is the virtue nor their fruit,
Upon our fnowy flocks, of fmall efteem:
The grain of brightest tincture none so well
Imbibes the wealthy Gobelins must to this
Bear witness, and the costlieft of their looms.
And though, with hue of crocus or of rofe,
No power of fubtle food, or air, or foil,
Can dye the living fleece; yet 'twill avail
To note their influence in the tinging vase.
Therefore from herbage of old-pastur'd plains,
Chief from the matted turf of azure marle,
Where grow the whiteft locks, collect thy ftores.
Those fields regard not, through whofe recent turf
The miry foil appears: not ev'n the streams
Of Yare, or filver Stroud, can purify

Their frequent-fully'd fleece; nor what rough winds,
Keen-biting on tempeftuous hills, inbrown.

Yet much may be perform'd, to check the force Of Nature's rigor: the high heath, by trees Warm-shelter'd, may despise the rage of forms: Moors, bogs, and weeping fens, may learn to fmile, And leave in dykes their foon-forgotten tears.

Labor

Labor and Art will every aim atchieve

Of noble bofoins. Bedford Level *, erft
A dreary pathlefs wafte, the coughing flock
Was wont with hairy fleeces to deform;
And, smiling with her lure of fummer flowers,
The heavy ox, vain-ftruggling, to ingulph;
Till one, of that high-honour'd patriot name,
Ruffel, arofe, who drain'd the rushy fen,
Confin'd the waves, bade groves and gardens bloom,
And through his new creation led the Ouze,
And gentle Camus, filver-winding streams:
God-like beneficence; from chaos drear
To raise the garden and the fhady grove!
But fee Ierne's moors and hideous bogs,
Immeasurable tract. The traveller
Slow tries his mazy ftep on th' yielding tuft,
Shuddering with fear: ev'n fuch perfidious wilds,
By labor 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 fores,
Varies, improves, creates 'tis Art and Toil
Teaches her woody hills with fruits to shine,
The pear and tafteful apple; decks with flowers
And foodful pulfe 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,

In Cambridgeshire.

When