POEMS. 521 



Return, dear Nymphs ; prevent the purple spring, 

 Ere the soft nightingale essays to sing ; 

 Ere the first swallow sweeps the freshening plain, 

 Ere love-sick turtles breathe their amorous pain ; 

 Let festive glee th' enlivened village raise, 

 Pan's blameless reign, and patriarchal days ; 

 With pastoral dance the smitten swain surprise, 

 And bring all Arcady before our eyes. 



Return, blithe maidens ; with you bring along 

 Free, native humour, all the charms of song, 

 The feeling heart, and unaffected ease, 

 Each nameless grace, and every power to please. 



Nov. 1, 1763. 



ON THE RAINBOW. 



" Look upon the rainbow, and praise him that made it : very beautiful 

 is it in the brightness thereof." Eccles. xliii. 11. 



N morning or on evening cloud impressed, 

 Bent in vast curve, the watery meteor shines 

 Delightfully, to the levelled sun opposed : 

 Lovely refraction ! while the vivid brede 

 In listed colours glows, th' unconscious swain 

 With vacant eye gazes on the divine 

 Phenomenon, gleaming o'er the illumined fields, 

 Or runs to catch the treasures which it sheds. 



Not so the sage, inspired with pious awe ; 

 He hails the federal arch ; l and looking up 

 Adores that God, whose fingers formed this bow 

 Magnificent, compassing heaven about 

 With a resplendent verge, " Thou madest the cloud, 

 Maker Omnipotent, and thou the bow ; 

 And by that covenant graciously hast sworn 



1 Gen. ix. 1217. 



