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MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS.

PART SECOND.

I.

WHILE not a leaf seems faded,

while the fields,

With ripening harvest prodigally fair,

In brightest sunshine bask, this nipping air,

Sent from some distant clime where Winter wields

His icy scymetar, a foretaste yields

Of bitter change — and bids the Flowers beware; And whispers to the silent Birds, "Prepare Against the threatening Foe your trustiest shields." For me, who under kindlier laws belong

To Nature's tuneful quire, this rustling dry

Through the green leaves, and yon crystalline sky, Announce a season potent to renew,

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Mid frost and snow, the instinctive joys of song, – And nobler cares than listless summer knew.

II.

THIS, AND THE TWO FOLLOWING, WERE SUGGESTED BY MR. W. WESTALL'S VIEWS OF THE CAVES, &C. IN YORKSHIRE.

PURE element of waters! wheresoe'er

Thou dost forsake thy subterranean haunts,
Green herbs, bright flowers, and berry-bearing
Rise into life and in thy train appear:

[plants,
And, through the sunny portion of the year,
Swift insects shine, thy hovering pursuivants:
And, if thy bounty fail, the forest pants;
And hart and hind and hunter with his spear,
Languish and droop together. Nor unfelt
In man's perturbed soul thy sway benign;
And, haply, far within the marble belt
Of central earth, where tortured Spirits pine
grace and goodness lost, thy murmurs melt
Their anguish, and they blend sweet songs with
thine!*

For

* Waters (as Mr. Westall informs us in the letter-press prefixed to his admirable views) are invariably found to flow through these caverns.

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