Provokes to keener toils than sultry droughts

Allow. But rarely we such skies blaspheme.

Steep’d in continual rains, or with raw fogs 250

Bedew’d, our seasons droop; incumbent still

A ponderous heaven o’erwhelms the sinking soul.

Lab’ring with storms in heapy mountains rise

Th’ imbattled clouds, as if the Stygian shades

Had left the dungeon of eternal night, 255

Till black with thunder all the south descends.

Scarce in a showerless day the heavens indulge