ns of Tweed;
75 Pass with light step his wave-worn banks along,
And wake his Echoes with their silver tongue;
Or touch the reed, as gentle Love inspires,
In notes accordant to their chaste desires.
I.
"Sweet ECHO! sleeps thy vocal shell,
"Where this high arch o'erhangs the dell;
"While Tweed with sun-reflecting streams
"Chequers thy rocks with dancing beams?--
[_Ovena_. l. 73. Oat. The numerous families of grasses have all three
males, and two females, except Anthoxanthum, which gives the grateful
smell to hay, and has but two males. The herbs of this order of
vegetables support the countless tribes of graminivorous animals. The
seeds of the smaller kinds of grasses, as of aira, poa, briza, stipa,
&c. are the sustenance of many sorts of birds. The seeds of the large
grasses, as of wheat, barley, rye, oats, supply food to the human
species.
It seems to have required more ingenuity to think of feeding nations of
mankind with so small a seed, than with the potatoe of Mexico, or the
bread-fruit of the southern islands; hence Ceres in Egypt, which was the
birth-place of our European arts, was deservedly celebrated amongst their
divinities, as well as Osyris, who invented the Plough.
Mr. Wahlborn observes, that as wheat, rye, and many of the grasses, and
plantain, lift up their anthers on long filments, and thus expose the
enclosed fecundating dust to be washed away by the rains, a scarcity of
corn is produced by wet summers; hence the necessity of a careful choice
of seed wheat, as that, which had not received the dust of the anthers,
will not grow, though it may appear well to the eye. The straw of the
oat seems to have been the first musical instrument, invented during the
pastoral ages of the world, before the discovery of metals. See note on
Cistus.]
II.
"Here may no clamours harsh intrude,
No brawling hound or clarion rude;
85 Here no fell beast of midnight prowl,
And teach thy tortured cliffs to howl!
III.
"Be thine to pour these vales along
Some artless Shepherd's evening song;
While Night's sweet bird, from yon high spray
90 Responsive, listens to his lay.
IV.
"And if, like me, some love-lorn maid
"Should sing her sorrows to thy shade,
"Oh, sooth her breast, ye rocks around!
"With softest sympathy of soun
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