Now, David, I'll attempt a loftier strain;
Listen, and judge of my poetic vein.
See Phoebus his meridian height attains,
And, like a king, in all his splendour reigns;
Beneath his scorching radiance Nature lies
Feverish and faint; her beauteous verdure dies;
Oppress'd and panting with the sultry heat,
The flocks and herds to shades or streams retreat;
Through the still air no Zephyr dares to play, }
Lest his soft pinion melt in heat away; }
But if, to mitigate the solar ray, }
A lucid cloud should kindly intervene;
Then the glad Zephyrs sport beneath the grateful screen.