Her smiles, sweet-beaming, on her shepherd-king, While the glad circle round them yield their souls To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall. Meantime, their joyous task goes on apace: Some, mingling, stir the melted tar, and some, Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side To stamp his master's cipher ready stand; Others the unwilling wether drag along; And, glorying in his might, the sturdy boy Holds by the twisted horns the indignant ram. Behold where bound, and of its robe bereft, By needy man, that all-depending lord, How meek, how patient, the mild creature lies! What softness in its melancholy face, What dumb, complaining innocence appears! Fear not, ye gentle tribes, 'tis not the knife Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you wav'd; No, 'tis the tender swain's well-guided shears, Who having now, to pay his annual care, Borrow'd your fleece, to you a cumbrous load, Will send you bounding to your hills again. [Illustration: Sheep-washing] A simple scene! yet hence Britannia sees Her solid grandeur rise: hence she commands The exalted stores of every brighter clime, The treasures of the sun without his rage; Hence, fervent all, with culture, toil, and arts, Wide glows her land; her dreadful thunder hence Rides o'er the waves sublime, and now, even now, Impending hangs o'er Gallia's humbled coast; Hence rules the circling deep, and awes the world. 'Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the sun Darts on the head direct his forceful rays. O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all, From pole to pole, is undistinguish'd blaze. In vain the sight, dejected to the ground, Stoops for relief; thence hot ascending streams And keen reflection pain. Deep to the root Of vegetation parch'd, the cleaving fields And slippery lawn an arid hue disclose, Blast fancy's blooms, and wither even the soul. Echo no more returns the cheerful sound Of sharpening scythe; the mower, sinking, heaps O'er him the humid hay, with flowers perfum'd; And scarce a chirping grasshopper is heard Through the dumb mead. Distressful nature pants. The very streams look languid from afar; Or, through the unshelter'd glade, impatient, seem To hurl into the covert of the grove.