Nor when the Months consummate, left their vales
To Suns less ardent, less benignant gales,
And Autumn painted, with his tawny hand,
The shrinking foliage, and in colours bland
Streak’d the pale red with purple, faint and brief,
And tipt with tarnish’d gold each trembling leaf.
Nor e’en when Phœbus’ Steeds, no longer fleet,
With mane dishevel’d streaming to their feet,
Struggling thro’ clouds, th’ hybernal Solstice gain,
Their necks bedropt with globes of freezing rain,