To glad our dampy, darksome skies :
Which once deserted by his light
Would langush in eternal night.

Eut Gardening were of all a toil,
That on our hopes the least would smile;
Should the kind God of day forbear
T'exhale the rains, foment the air;
Or, in an angry mood, decline
With his prolific beams to shine.

Ev'n thou-though that's thy meanest praise,
Nor fruits nor flowers could'st hope to raise ;
Howe'er thou may'st in order place,
Of both, the latter, earlier race;
In glasses or in sheds confin'd,

To shield them from the wintry wind;
Or, in the Spring, with skilful care,
Range them his influence best to share;
Did not the sun, their genial sire,
The vegetative soul inspire:

Instruct the senseless aukward root,
And teach the fibres how to shoot:
Command the taper stalk to rear
His flowering head, to grace the year;
To shed ambrosial odors round,
And, paint with choicest dyes, the ground.

Thou, next to him, art truly great ; On earth his mighty delegate :

The vegetable world to guide,
And o'er all Botany preside:

To see that every dewy morn
Successive plants the earth adorn :

That flowers through every month be found,
Constant to keep their gaudy round:
That flowers, in spite of frost and snow,
Throughout our year, perpetual blow;
That trees, in spite of winds, are seen
Array'd in everlasting green.

Nor with a care beneath thy skill Dost thou that vast employment fill.

Hail, Horticulture's sapient king!
Receive the homage that we bring:
While at thy feet, with reverence low,
All Botanists and Florists bow;
Their knowledge, practice, all resign,
Short-infinitely short, of thine.

For thou'rt not satisfied to know
The plants that in three nations blow,
Their names, their seasons, native place;
Their culture, qualities, and race;
Or Europe's more extended plains;
Sylvanus', Flora's wide domains:
Whate'er in Africk, Asia, shoots

From seeds, from layers, grafts, or roots;
At both the Indies, both the Poles,

Whate'er the sea or ocean rolls;
Of the botanic, herbal kind,

Lies open to thy searching mind.

Noblest ambition of thy soul ! Which limits but in vain control. Let.others, meanly satisfy'd

With partial knowledge sooth their pride : Whilst thou, with thy prodigious store,

But show'st thy modesty the more.

Thou venerable Patriarch wise,
Instruct us in thy mysteries:

From thee the Gods no knowledge hide,
No knowledge have to thee deny'd:
The rural Gods of hills or plains,
Where Faunus or Favonia reigns.

Then tell us, as thou best dost know,
Where perfect happiness does grow,

What herbs or bodies will sustain
Secure from sickness, and from pain:
What plants protect us from the rage
Of blighting time, or blasting age;
Which shrubs, of all the flowery field,
Most aromatic odors yield.

Shew us the trees by Nature spread, To form the coolest-noon-tide shade;

When our first ancestors were seen,
Out-stretch'd upon the grassy green :
Nor any food or covering sought,
But what from trees and woods they got:
Who, after various ages spent

In ease, abundance, and content,

Knew not what wars, or sickness meant ; But, cheerful, when the Fates requir'd, Quick to th' Elysian fields retir❜d,

Recount the precepts they observ'd; How from their rules they never swerv'd: Such as of Alcinous of old

To his beloved Phaeacians told;

Or those Apollo first did teach
His son, the Epidaurian leech.

Long ere the Romans us'd to dine Beneath their planes manur'd with wine; On Tyrian couches, thoughtless lay, And drank, and laugh'd, and kiss'd away Each sultry, circling, Summer's day; On polish'd ivory beds reclin'd Flung care and sorrow to the wind: And, scorning Nature's temperate rules, Like madmen liv'd, and dy'd like fools:

Teach us, thou learn'd judicious Sage, The manners of a wiser age!

To thee was given by Jove to keep Those grottos where the Muses sleep: To plant their forests where they sing, Fast by the cool Castalian spring: With myrtles their pavilions raise; Soft, intermix'd with Delian bays: And when, they wake at earliest day, To strew with sweetest flowers their way. Transcendent honor! here below,

The Muses and their haunts to know!

Annal look down on Isis' towers;
Be gracious to the Muses' bowers:
And, now thy toils of war are done;
Anna! protect Apollo's throne:
'Twas he the dart unerring threw ;
Python the snaky monster slew.

The Muses' bowers, by all admir'd, But those Fanatic rage has fir'd, Or Atheist fools, who freedom boast, Themselves to slavery fetter'd most. Stern Mars, may thunder, Momus rail; But Wisdom's goodness will prevail.

On Isis' banks-retirement sweet! Tritonian Pallas holds her seat.

Minerva's gardens are thy care; Bobart! the Virgin-power revere :