130 NATURAL HISTORY 



As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain 



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



Each rural sight, each sound, eacli smell com- 

 bine ; 

 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 !* 

 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 hastened to his Hero's bed.f 



I am, &c. 



* The light of the female glow-worm (as she often 

 crawls up the stalk of a grass to make herself more con- 

 spicuous) is a signal to the male, which is a slender dusky 

 scarabaeus. 



t See the story of Hero and Leander. 



