THOMSON. 
205 
All know Lucretius’ and Tennyson’s descriptions of a dog’s 
■dreams ; Thomson’s has escaped notice. 
He dwells upon the murmurous life of summer: — 
“ Resounds the living surface of the ground ; 
Nor undelightful in the ceaseless hum 
To him, who muses through the woods at noon ; 
Or drowsy shepherd, as he lies reclined 
With half-shut eyes, under the floating shade 
Of willows gray, close crowding o’er the brook.” 
He dwells upon “ the downy orchard,” and upon the hay- 
field, where all the rustic populace 
“ Rake the green appearing ground. 
And drive the dusky wave along the mead.” 
He describes the sheep-shearing, and the poor sheep : “ what 
softness in its melancholy face ! ” It is true, as Cowper and as 
Hazlitt said, that he describes best what he has seen, yet some 
of his foreign descriptions are admirable. “ The rage intense 
of brazen-vaulted skies, of iron fields,” and the volcano, “ the 
infuriate hill that shoots the pillared flame.” But his love was 
all for England : “ Thy valleys float with golden waves ; ” and 
he is happiest in such scenes as the summer evening, when, 
“ A fresher gale 
Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream. 
Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn ; 
While the quail clamours for his running mate.” 
In autumn, under “attempered suns ” — 
“broad and brown, below 
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head : 
Rich, silent, deep, they stand, for not a gale 
Rolls its light billows o’er the bending plain. 
A calm of plenty ! till the ruffled air 
Falls from its poise and gives the breeze to blow.” 
The chase occupies much of Autumn; thus he pictures the 
piteous hare, hidden in “ rushy fen,” or “ ragged furze,” on the 
“stony heath,” or in “ thick-entangled broom,” or “ withered 
fern,” of “ the same friendly hue” with herself. 
“ Vain is her best precaution, though she sits. 
Concealed, with .flalded ears, unsleeping eyes. 
By nature raised to take the horizon in ; 
And head couched close betwixt her hairy feet. 
In act to spring away. The scented dew 
Betrays her early labyrinth, and deep 
In scattered sullen openings far behind. 
With every breeze she hears the coming storm ; 
and as it comes nearer, 
“ she springs amazed, and all 
The savage soul of game is up at once.” 
There is the picture of the gathering swallows, how, circling 
in the air, a “ feathered eddy floats,” and the migration of sea- 
birds : — 
