"Nor less, by sure prognostics, mayest thou learn (When rain prevails), in prospect to behold Warm suns, and cloudless heavens, around thee smile. Brightly the stars shine forth; Cynthia no more Glimmers obnoxious to her brother's rays; Nor fleecy clouds float lightly through the sky. The chosen birds of Thetis, halcyons, now Spread not their pinions on the sun-bright shore; Nor swine the bands unloose, and toss the straw. The clouds, descending, settle on the plain; While owls forget to chant their evening song, But watch the sunset from the topmost ridge. The merlin swims the liquid sky, sublime, While for the purple lock the lark atones: Where she, with light wing, cleaves the yielding air, Her shrieking fell pursuer follows fierce-- The dreaded merlin; where the merlin soars, _Her_ fugitive swift pinion cleaves the air. And now, from throat compressed, the rook emits, Treble or fourfold, his clear, piercing cry; While oft amid their high and leafy roosts, Bursts the responsive note from all the clan, Thrill'd with unwonted rapture--oh! 'tis sweet, When bright'ning hours allow, to seek again Their tiny offspring, and their dulcet homes. Yet deem I not, that heaven on them bestows Foresight, or mind above their lowly fate; But rather when the changeful climate veers, Obsequious to the humor of the sky; When the damp South condenses what was rare, The dense relaxing--or the stringent North Rolls back the genial showers, and rules in turn, The varying impulse fluctuates in their breast: Hence the full concert in the sprightly mead-- The bounding flock--the rook's exulting cry." _4th. The Moon's Aspects, etc._ "Mark with attentive eye, the rapid sun-- The varying moon that rolls its monthly round; So shalt thou count, not vainly, on the morn; So the bland aspect of the tranquil night Will ne'er beguile thee with insidious calm. When Luna first her scatter'd fires recalls, If with blunt horns she holds the dusky air, Seamen and swains predict th' abundant shower. If rosy blushes tinge her maiden cheek, Wind will arise: the golden Phoebe still Glows with the wind. If (mark the ominous hour!) The clear fourth night her lucid disk define, That day, and all that thence successive spring, E'en to the finished month, are calm and dry; And grateful mariners redeem their vows To Glaucus, Inoeus, or the Nereid nymph." _5th. The Sun's Aspects, etc._