August

Oh! for the covert of some gelid cave,
Whose dank walls cradle a perennial stream,
That never flash’d to Summer’s ardent beam,
But, chastely cold, might tempt in its clear wave
Some fabled nymph her fairy form to lave.
Now beauty yields to splendour, flowers to fruit:
No more “in linked sweetness” gaily shoot
Woodbine and rose from moss-grown wall, or brave
The beetling cliff, whose frowning horrors yield
To their sweet witchery. See, how broad noon,
With fervid glare, broods o’er yon sloping field,
Now white to harvest:” yet another moon,
And then shall Plenty’s copious horn be fill’d
With golden fruits from Spring’s fair blossoms won.