Of the toy-taken fancy, and beside,

A void and countless hour in life's brief day.

But ill accords my verse with the delights Of this gay month :-and see the Villagers Assembling jocund in their best attire

To grace this genial morn. Now I descend

To join the worldly crowd; perchance to talk,
To think, to act as they: then all these thoughts,
That lift th' expanded heart above this spot
To heavenly musing, these shall pass away

(Even as this goodly prospect from my view)
Hidden by near and earthy-rooted cares.

So passeth human life-our better mind.

Is as a Sunday's garment, then put on

When we have nought to do; but at our work

We wear a worse for thrift.

Of this enough:

To-morrow for severer thought; but now

To breakfast, and keep festival to-day.

NOTES.

NOTES.

Note 1, page 4, line 10.

At each return of spring: yet some delight, &c. AN adventitious beauty, arising from that gradual decay, which loosens the withering leaf, gilds the autumnal landscape with a temporary splendor superior to the verdure of spring, or the luxuriance of summer. The infinitely various and ever-changing hues of the leaves at this season, melting into every soft gradation of tint and shade, have long engaged the imitation of the painter, and are equally happy ornaments in the description of the poet.-Aikin's Essay on the Character of Thompson's Seasons, prefixed to his edition of them, 1791.

Note 2, p. 10, line 7.

Rechasing, lest his tender ewes should coath.

To coath, Skinner says, is a word common in Lincolnshire, and signifies, to faint. He derives it from the Anglo-Saxon code, a disease. In Dorsetshire it is in common use, but it is used of sheep only: a coathed sheep is a rotten sheep; to coath is to take the rot.