O! where the rofy-bofom'd Hours,

Fair Venus' train, appear,

Disclose the long-expecting flowers,

And wake the purple year

The Attic warbler pours her throat,

Refponfive to the cuckoo's note,

!

The untaught harmony of spring: While, whisp'ring pleasure as they fly, Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky Their gather'd fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches ftretch

A broader browner fhade,

Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech

O'er-canopies the glade,'

Befide fome water's rushy brink

With me the Muse shall fit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great !3

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

Yet hark, how through the peopled air

The busy murmur glows!

The insect-youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,

And float amid the liquid noon :

Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show 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 through life's little day,

In Fortune's varying colours dreft:
Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.

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

Poor moralift! and what art thou?

A folitary fly!

Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive haft thou of hoarded fweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hafty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy fun is set, thy spring is gone—

We frolic while 'tis May.