POETRY. 
Sir, '_ Io the Editor of the Bee. y 
The following lines were written by the late worthy Gilbert White, 
brother to Mr White the eminent bookseller, and author of the na- 
tural history and antiquities of Selborne, in the county of Southamp- 
ton. 
ON THE DARK, STILL, DRY, WARM WEATHER OCCASIONALLY HAR- 
PENING IN THE WINTER AND SPRING MONTHS, 
e 
For the Bee. 
Th’ imprison’d winds slumber within their caves 
Fast bound: the fickle vane, emblem of change, 
Wavers no more ; long settling toa pvint. 
All nature nodding seems compos'd: thick steams 
From land, from flood updrawn, dimming the day, 
* Like a dark ceiling stand :”” slow through the air 
Gofsamer floats, or stretch’d from blade to blade 
The wavy network whitens all the field. 
Puth’d by the weightier atmosphere, upsprings 
The pond’rous Mercury, from scale to scale 
Mounting, along the Torrjcellian tube : 
While high in air, and pois’d upon his wings 
Unseen, the soft enamour’d wood-lark runs 
Through all his maze of melody; the brake 
Loud with the blackbird’s bolder note ‘resounds. 
—Sooth’d by the genial warmth, the cawing rook 
Anticipates the spring, selects her mate, 
Haunts her tall nest-trees, and with sedulous care 
Repairs her wicker eyrie, tempest-torn. 
The ploughman inly smiles tosee upturn 
His mellow glebe, best pledge of future crop : 
With glee the gardner eyes his smoaking beds : 
Ev’n pining sicknefs feels a fhort relief. 
The happy school-boy brings transported forth 
His long forgotten scourge and giddy gigg : 
O’er the white paths he whirls the rolling hoop, 
Or triumphs in the dusty fields of Taw, 
Not so the thoughtiul sage. Abroad he walks 
Contemplative; if haply he may find ‘ 
What cause controuls the tempest’s rage, or whence 
Amidst the savage season winter smiles.— 
. For days, for weeks, prevails the placid calm, * 
; At length some drops prelude a change: the sun ; 
With ray refracted bursts the parting gloom ; 
When all the ehequer’d fky is one bright glare. 
With angry aspect scowls; down ruth the fhowers 
And float the delug’d path’s and miry fields, 
