The ploughman inly smiles to see upturn
His mellow globe, best pledge of future crop:
With glee the gardener eyes his smoking beds;
E'en pining sickness feels a short relief

The happy schoolboy brings transported forth
His long-forgotten scourge, and giddy gig:
O'er the white paths he whirls the rolling hoop,
Or triumphs in the dusty fields of taw.

Not so the museful sage:--abroad he walks
Contemplative, if haply he may find
What cause controls the tempest's rage, or whence,
Amidst the savage season, Winter smiles.

For days, for weeks, prevails the placid calm.
At length some drops prelude a change: the sun
With ray refracted, bursts the parting gloom,
When all the chequer'd sky is one bright glare.

Mutters the wind at eve; th' horizon round
With angry aspect scowls: down rush the showers,
And float the deluged paths, and miry fields.