7.
Trusted to tedious hope
So many months the Corn;
Which now begins to turn
Into a golden crop:
The lusty grapes, (which plump
Are the last farewell of the summer’s pomp)
8.
How spacious spreads the vine!—
Nursed up with how much care,
She lives, she thrives, grows fair;
’Bout her loved Elm doth twine:—
Comes a cold cloud; and lays,
In one, the fabric of so many days.
9.
A silver River small
In sweet accents
His music vents,
(The warbling virginal,
To which the merry birds do sing—
Timed with stops of gold[233] the silver string);
10.
He steals by a greenwood
With fugitive feet;
Gay, jolly, sweet:
Comes me a troubled flood;
And scarcely one sand stays,
To be a witness of his golden days.—
11.
The Ship’s upweigh’d;
The Pilgrim made a Saint;
Next spring re-crowns the Plant;
Winds raise the Corn, was laid;
The Vine is pruned;
The Rivulet new tuned:—
But in the Ill I have
I’m left alive only to dig my grave.