October. Poem by Samuel Bamford

Now the dull and lazy hours
Steal away, through clouds and showers,
Sol, another path has found,
By the south he wheels around;
And the vapours that arise
Float betwixt the earth and skies,
And the withered leaves are strown
Where the sullen wind hath blown,
And the beast stands on the lea
Lowing for the eve of day,
For the fields are cold and bare,
And fragrance breathes no longer there.

Or if southern gales attend,
Dripping rains no more descend,
Then the robin sings his lay
Fraught with pensive melody;
Last of all the feathered race,
He the waning year doth grace,
Like a true and tender friend
Still consoling to the end.

Chilling winds, from ocean's strand,
Breathe across the mourning land,
Bringing tidings, as they fly,
That the herbs and flowers shall die.
Winter comes behind to spoil
Those that linger yet awhile
In the nook, where sunny rays
Longest dwell on shining days;
Where the waving fern doth grow,
Where the air blows soft and low,
Where the pendant 'bines descend
By rills whose murmurs never end.

O'er the moorlands, wide and lone,
Comes a deep and boding tone,
Reynard coil'd, within his den,
Hears afar the cry of men,
And the poor beleagured hare
Pants within her wildered lair,
And the bird, with broken wing,
Dies in unknown suffering,
All to sport the lord who reigns
O'er the waters and the plains,
As if it, indeed, were joy
Thus to torture and destroy.
Oh, would man but deign to know
Mercy's mild and noble glow,
Surely he would not distress
Beings he doth never bless.
Let the eagle tear its prey,
Leave the dog and fox at bay;
And uplift thine eye of pride
Where thine own oppressors bide.