Very finely modernised by Dryden thus:—
“The morning lark, messenger of day,
Saluted in her song the morning grey;
And soon the sun arose with beams so bright
That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight.”
Our summer, then, thus far, has not been a “laughing,” but, at the best, a merely smiling summer. There has been but little actual sunshine, rarely such a thing as a blue, unclouded sky; but, if we do not err, if the wish be not altogether father to the thought, a splendid autumn, glad and golden—summer and autumn in one, like the companion scenes in a stereoscope, in close and kindly combination—is in store for us. Even as it is, the country is very beautiful, and the rains of the west, if superabundant, are at least perfectly harmless to any one in ordinary health, no matter how often you get drenched through and through, as the saying is, provided always you do not idly saunter or sit down for any length of time in wet clothes; neglect this precaution, however, and you may look out for an attack of rheumatism, and the taste of pains to which the tortures of the rack were but a joke—pains as fiery and intense as those threatened against the foul-mouthed Caliban in the Tempest. You recollect what Prospero says—
“Hag-seed hence!
Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou wert best
To answer other business. Shrug’st thou, malice?
If thou neglect’st, or dost unwillingly