James Thomson Poems

When Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain:
...

Feather'd lyric, warbling high,
Sweetly gaining on the sky,
Op'ning with thy matin lay
...

Come, gentle Venus! and assuage
A warring world, a bleeding age.
For nature lives beneath thy ray,
The wintry tempests haste away,
...

Our bard, to modern epilogue a foe,
Thinks such mean mirth but deadens generous woe;
Dispels in idle air the moral sigh,
...

The stag, too, singled from the herd, where long
He ranged, the branching monarch of the shade,
Before the tempest drives. At first, in speed
...

As thus the patient dam assiduous sits,
Not to be tempted from her tender task,
Or by sharp hunger, or by smooth delight,
...

Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around.
Full swell the woods; their every music wakes,
...

The wanton's charms, however bright,
Are like the false illusive light
Whose flattering unauspicious blaze
To precipices oft betrays:
...

Come, gentle Spring! ethereal Mildness! come,
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower
...

DAVID.
What means yon apparition in the sky,
Thirsis, that dazzles every shepherd's eye?
...