92 SUMMER BIEDS OF PASSAGE. 



Till blended objects fail the swimming sight, 



And all the fading landscape sinks in night ; 



To hear the drowsy dorr come brushing by 



"With buzzing wing, or the shrill cricket* cry ; 



To see the feeding bat glance through the wood ; 



To catch the distant falling of the flood ; 



While o'er the cliff th' awaken' d churn-owl hung, 



Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song ; 



"While, high in air, and poised upon his wings, 



Unseen, the soft enamour' d woodlarkf sings : 



These, Nature's works, the curious mind employ, 



Inspire a soothing melancholy joy : 



As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain 



Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein ! 



Each rural sight, each sound, each smell combine ; 

 The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine ; 

 The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze, 

 Or cottage chimney smoking through the trees. 



The chilling night-dews fall : away, retire ; 

 For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire ! J 

 Thus, ere night's veil had half obscured the sky, 

 Th' impatient damsel hung her lamp on high : 

 True to the signal, by love's meteor led, 

 Leander hasten' d to his Hero's bed.S 



LETTER XXY. 



TO THE HON. DAINES BAERINGTON'. 



SELBOBNE, June 30, 1769. 



DEAB SIB, When I was in town last month, I partly 

 engaged that I would some time do myself the honour to 

 write to you on the subject of natural history ; and I am the 



* Gryllus campestris. 



f" In hot summer nights, woodlarks soar to a prodigious height, and hang 

 singing in the air. 



+ The light of the female glow-worm (as she often crawls up the stalk of 

 a grass to make herself more conspicuous) is a signal to the male, which is a 

 slender .dusky scardbceus. 



See the story of Hero and Leander. 



