One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower Of mingled blossoms: where the raptur'd eye Hurries from joy to joy; and, hid beneath The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies. [Illustration: The deer rustle through the brake] If, brush'd from Russian wilds, a cutting gale Rise not, and scatter from his humid wings The clammy mildew; or, dry-blowing, breathe Untimely frost--before whose baleful blast The full-blown Spring through all her foliage shrinks, Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste. For oft, engender'd by the hazy north, Myriads on myriads, insect armies waft Keen in the poison'd breeze; and wasteful eat, Through buds and bark, into the blacken'd core Their eager way. A feeble race! yet oft The sacred sons of vengeance! on whose course Corrosive famine waits, and kills the year. To check this plague, the skillful farmer chaff And blazing straw before his orchard burns-- Till, all involv'd in smoke, the latent foe From every cranny suffocated falls; Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe; Or, when the envenom'd leaf begins to curl, With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest: Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill, The little trooping birds unwisely scares. [Illustration: Blazing straw before his orchard burns] Be patient, swains; these cruel-seeming winds Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep, repress'd, Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharg'd with rain, That o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne, In endless train, would quench the summer blaze, And, cheerless, drown the crude unripen'd year. The northeast spends his rage, and now shut up Within his iron caves--the effusive south Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent. At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise, Scarce staining ether; but by fast degrees, In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapor sails Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep, Sits on the horizon round a settled gloom: Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed, Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind, And full of every hope and every joy, The wish of Nature. Gradual sinks the breeze Into a perfect calm; that not a breath Is heard to quiver through the closing woods, Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffus'd In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all, And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye The falling verdure. Hush'd in short suspense, The plumy people streak their wings with oil, To throw the lucid moisture trickling off; And wait the approaching sign to strike, at once, Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,