SHEARING TIME.
FROM “THE FLEECE.”
If verdant elder spreads
Her silver flowers; if humble daisies yield
To yellow crowfoot and luxuriant grass,
Gay shearing-time approaches. First, howe’er,
Drive to the double fold, upon the brim
Of a clear river; gently drive the flock,
And plunge them one by one into the flood.
Plunged in the flood, not long the struggler sinks,
With his white flakes, that glisten through the tide;
The sturdy rustic, in the middle wave
Awaits to seize him rising; one arm bears
His lifted head above the limpid stream,
While the full, clammy fleece the other laves
Around, laborious with repeated toil,
And then resigns him to the sunny bank,
Where, bleating loud, he shakes his dripping locks.
Now to the other hemisphere, my muse!
A new world found, extend thy daring wing.
Be thou the first of the harmonious nine
From high Parnassus, the unwearied toils
Of industry and valor, in that world
Triumphant, to reward with tuneful song.
Happy the voyage o’er the Atlantic brine,
By active Raleigh made, and great the joy
When he discern’d, above the foaming surge,
A rising coast, for future colonies,
Opening her bays, and figuring her capes,
E’en from the northern tropic to the pole.
No land gives more employment for the loom,
Or kindlier feeds the indigent; no land
With more variety of wealth rewards
The hand of labor: thither, from the wrongs
Of lawless rule, the free-born spirit flies;
Thither affliction, thither poverty,
And arts and sciences; thrice happy clime,
Which Britain makes th’ asylum of mankind.
But joy superior far his bosom warms,
Who views those shores in every culture dressed;
With habitations gay, and numerous towns
On hill and valley; and his countrymen
Formed into various states, powerful and rich,
In regions far remote; who from our looms
Take largely for themselves, and for those tribes
Of Indians, ancient tenants of the land,
In amity conjoin’d, of civil life
The comforts taught, and various new desires
Which kindle arts, and occupy the poor,
And spread Britannia’s flocks o’er every dale.
Ye, who the shuttle cast along the loom,
The silkworm’s thread inweaving with the fleece,
Pray for the culture of the Georgian track,
Nor slight the green savannas and the plains
Of Carolina, where thick woods arise
Of mulberries, and in whose watered fields
Upsprings the verdant blade of thirsty rice.
Where are the happy regions which afford
More implements of commerce and of wealth?
Fertile Virginia, like a vigorous bough,
Which overshades some crystal river, spreads
Her wealthy cultivations wide around,
And, more than many a spacious realm, rewards
The fleecy shuttle: to her growing marts
The Iroquese, Cheroquese, and Oubaches come,
And quit their feathery ornaments uncouth
For woolly garments; and the cheers of life—
The cheers, but not the vices, learn to taste.
Blush, Europeans! whom the circling cup
Of luxury intoxicates; ye routs,
Who, for your crimes, have fled your native land;
And ye voluptuous idle, who in vain
Seek easy habitations, void of care:
The sons of Nature with astonishment
And detestation mark your evil deeds,
And view, no longer aw’d, your nerveless arms,
Unfit to cultivate Ohio’s banks.
See the bold emigrants of Acadie
And Massachuset, happy in those arts
That join the politics of trade and war,
Bearing the palm in either; they appear
Better exemplars; and that hardy crew
Who, on the frozen beach of Newfoundland,
Hang their white fish amid the parching winds;
The kindly fleece, in webs of Duffield woof,
Their limbs, benumb’d, infold with cheerly warmth;
And frieze of Cambria, worn by those who seek
Through gulfs and dales of Hudson’s winding bay
The beaver’s fur, though oft they seek in vain;
While Winter’s frosty rigor checks approach
E’en in the fiftieth latitude. Say why
(If ye, the travel’d sons of commerce, know),
Wherefore lie bound their rivers, lakes, and dales
Half the sun’s annual course in chains of ice,
While the Rhine’s fertile shore, and Gallic realms,
By the same zone encircled, long enjoy
Warm beams of Phœbus, and, supine, behold
Their plains and hillocks blush with clustering vines?
Must it be ever thus? or may the hand
Of mighty labor drain their gusty lakes,
Enlarge the brightening sky, and, peopling, warm
The opening valleys and the yellowing plains?
Or, rather, shall we burst strong Darien’s chain,
Steer our bold fleets between the cloven rocks,
And through the great Pacific every joy
Of civil life diffuse? Are not her isles
Numerous and large? Have they not harbors calm,
Inhabitants, and manners? Haply, too,
Peculiar sciences, and other forms
Of trade, and useful products, to exchange
For woolly vestures? * * *
* * * * *
A day will come, if not too deep we drink
The cup which luxury, on careless wealth,
Pernicious gift! bestows. A day will come,
When, through new channels sailing, we shall clothe
The Californian coast, and all the realms
That stretch from Anian’s straits to proud Japan.
Dyer’s Fleece, 1700–1758.
