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| WHERE Spring’s coy steps, in cold Canadia stray, | |
| And joyless seasons hold unequal sway; | |
| He saw the pine its daring mantle rear, | |
| Break the rude blast, and mock the inclement year, | |
| Secure the limits of the angry skies, | 5 |
| And bid all southern vegetation rise. | |
| Wild o’er the vast impenetrable round, | |
| The untrod bowers of shadowy nature frown’d; | |
| The neighboring cedar waved its honors wide, | |
| The fir’s tall boughs, the oak’s resistless pride, | 10 |
| The branching beech, the aspin’s trembling shade, | |
| Veil’d the dim heavens and brown’d the dusky glade. | |
| Here in huge crowds those sturdy sons of earth, | |
| In frosty regions, claim a nobler birth; | |
| Where heavy trunks the sheltering dome requires, | 15 |
| And copious fuel feeds the wintry fires. | |
| While warmer suns, that southern climes emblaze, | |
| A cool deep umbrage o’er the woodland raise; | |
| Floridia’s blooming shores around him spread, | |
| And Georgian hills erect their shady head; | 20 |
| Beneath tall trees, in livelier verdure gay, | |
| Long level walks a humble garb display; | |
| The infant corn, unconscious of its worth, | |
| Points the green spire and bends the foliage forth; | |
| Sweeten’d on flowery banks, the passing air | 25 |
| Breathes all the untasted fragrance of the year; | |
| Unbidden harvests o’er the regions rise, | |
| And blooming life repays the genial skies. | |
| Where circling shores around the gulf extend, | |
| The bounteous groves with richer burdens bend; | 30 |
| Spontaneous fruits the uplifted palms unfold, | |
| The beauteous orange waves a load of gold, | |
| The untaught vine, the wildly-wanton cane | |
| Bloom on the waste, and clothe the enarbor’d plain, | |
| The rich pimento scents the neighboring skies, | 35 |
| And woolly clusters o’er the cotton rise. | |
| Here, in one view, the same glad branches bring | |
| The fruits of autumn and the flowers of spring; | |
| No wintry blasts the unchanging year deform, | |
| Nor beasts unshelter’d fear the pinching storm: | 40 |
| But vernal breezes o’er the blossoms rove, | |
| And breathe the ripen’d juices through the grove. | |
| Beneath the crystal wave’s inconstant light, | |
| Pearls undistinguish’d sparkle on the sight; | |
| From opening earth, in living lustre, shine | 45 |
| The various treasures of the blazing mine; | |
| Hills, cleft before him, all their stores unfold, | |
| The quick mercurius and the burning gold; | |
| Gems of unnumber’d hues, in bright array, | |
| Illume the changing rocks and shed the beams of day. | 50 |
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