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• Friend to the Cane-isles; trust not thou thy tops,
• Thy future riches, to the low-land plain: [435]
• And if kind Heaven, in pity to thy prayers,
• Shed genial influence; as the earth absolves
• Her annual circuit, thy rich ripened Canes

• Shall load thy waggons, mules, and Negroe-train.

• BUT chief thee, Planter, it imports to mark [440]
• (Whether thou breathe the mountain’s humid air,
• Or pant with heat continual on the plain;)

• What months relent, and which from rain are free.

• IN different islands of the ocean-stream,
• Even in the different parts of the same isle, [445]
• The seasons vary; yet attention soon
• Will give thee each variety to know.
• This once observ’d; at such a time inhume
• Thy plants, that, when they joint, (important age,
• Like youth just stepping into life) the clouds [450]
• May constantly bedew them: so shall they

• Avoid those ails, which else their manhood kill.

• SIX times the changeful moon must blunt her horns,¹
• And fill with borrowed light her silvery urn;

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