118 THE WORLD. 



With pensive labor draws the flaxen thread, 

 The wasted taper and the crackling flame 

 Foretell the blast. But chief the plumy race, 

 The tenants of the sky, its changes speak. 

 Retiring from the downs, where all daylong 

 They pick'd their scanty fare, a blackening train 

 Of clamorous rooks thick-urge their weary flight, 

 And seek the closing shelter of the grove. 

 Assiduous, in his bower, the wailing owl 

 Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high 

 Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land. 

 Loud shrieks the soaring hern ; and with wild wing 



The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds. 



Ocean, unequal press'd, with broken tide 



And blind commotion heaves ; while from the shore, 



Eat into cftverns by the restless wave, 



And forest-rustling mountain, comes a voice, 



That solemn-sounding bids the world prepare. 



Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst, 



And hurls the whole precipitated air 



Down in a torrent." 



Those tokens which portend the more violent convulsions of 

 the atmosphere, the pelting storm, or the careering tempest, are 

 generally of a decided character, but the symptoms which go 

 before the ordinary fluctuations of the weather can only be dimly 

 conjectured by long experience and sagacious observation. 



Nothing can be more utterly groundless than the disposition to 

 refer the ordinary changes of the weather to the influence of the 

 moon. But, compared with this, the fancied efficacy of the stel- 

 lar aspects vanishes into the shadow of a vision. The moon by 



