The dancing Hopes, the glittering vein
That runs through Fancy's boundless reign;
With all the vivid grace of thought,
In Wit's energic quickness wrought;
And Humour, at whose festal sounds
Fantastic-footed Laughter bounds.
With thee even Solitude is seen
Clear from the withering hue of spleen;
Her solemn air, her musing pace,
Each deep, composed, majestic grace,
Flush'd heavenly by thy vital bloom
A freer fairer look assume;
Her listless thought, her languid tone
No more oppressive sadness own;
But, nerved by thee, such transport take
That all her silent fancies wake.
Thou, in Retirement's hermit hour,
A fairy saint to bless her bower,
Shalt chase, with holy spell, away
The fiends that vex her private day;
Self-tired and sullen Discontent;
Hatred, his brows in anger bent;
And Superstition's gorgon head
That rends the midnight dream with dread; And Melancholy's moping train,
Grief, and the sickly dregs of Pain;
And stern Disgust of Life, that bears
With murmur'd woe his weight of cares,
Or, as his desperate sorrows rave,
Visits in gore his timeless grave.
When evening shadows haunt the vale,
And dewy sweets enrich the gale,
And musing through her motley groves
With Inspiration Autumn roves;
When Hope, upon her morning's wing,
Enchanting sheds the bloom of spring;
When Summer's sultry noon persuades
Where Coolness wreathes her bowery shades,
And Beauty courts, with loosen'd vest,
The struggling Zephyrs to her breast;
When shuddering crones, in wintry nights,
Recount long tales of ghostly sights,
And, hovering o'er the embers' gleam,
At every casual sparkle scream;
O genius of the chosen hour!
When most I court thy glowing power,
From irksome labours ever free,
If Heaven such bliss reserve for me,
From social mirth retired awhile,
Full on my soul delighted smile!
Though Grandeur stoop not to my shed;
Though Pride avert his lifted head;
Though tasteless Folly fluttering by
Leer on my lot with Mockery's eye;
Yet here while Health consents to stay,
The charmer of my secret day;
While Love, with youthful Hope allied,
Beneath my cottage roof abide;
While myrtle-handed Leisure throws
O'er soften'd life her sweet repose;
And Fancy to her favourite lute
Some high ambitious rhyme shall suit;
My heart, with these sublimely bless'd,
Bids Pride and Folly share the rest.
Yet if my fate my wish deny;
If leisure, love, and fancy fly,
While, dim and weary, life remains,
And heaves the slow blood through my veins,
Order and Peace, a tranquil mind,
Though ever pensive, yet resign'd,
Shall worship on the banks of Trent
The household deity, Content.
Now the doubling vapours fill
The vale, and hover o'er the hill;
The heath, that right against the view
Lifts its slope side, is clad in blue;
O'er the far extended wood
Deep and still the gray mists brood;
While by the hedge and on the grass
We brush the vapours as we pass.
Still is the air; the leaves and herbs
Not a single breath disturbs,
Save that, by fits, the breeze's sighs
In murmurs through the boughs arise.
Through the dead calm that reigns around,
Is heard distinctly every sound:
The rooks, that still from earliest dawn
With caw incessant pass the lawn,
Then quick repass, with burden fill'd,
Their annual aerie to rebuild;
The plough, that sometimes screaks;-anon
The swain's loud laugh, that guides it on;
The clapping gate, at which we see,
Slowly returning from the lea,
The sower with his empty sack;
The woodman, laden at his back
With roots and broken sticks and boughs,
That custom for his toil allows;
Or red-cloak'd housewife of the cot,
Who from the vill her stores has got
To cheer her household, when they leave
The barn or wood or field at eve;
Or truant boys, whose cheerful voice
Down in the vale we hear rejoice;
The horses' steps along the lane,
Or the loud ring of loaded wain;
Or from the public road afar
The rattle of the fleeter car
(While at each pause from yonder vale
We hear the cuckoo tell her tale,
Or gentle stockdove pour her moan
In deep and melancholy tone);
The babbling hounds, whose distant cries
Waked by the horn's loud melodies,
Or shrill-voiced huntsman's echoing cheer
Die into music in the air;
The bleating flock from yonder steep,
The dog that bays the straying sheep,
And shepherd's hallo from the hill,
At which the' obedient dog is still;
The village artist's hasty stroke;
The slower flail; the falling oak
That echoes from the quaking dell;
The rapid whirl from cottage well;
The cattle, lowing from the farm;
And thousand sounds beside, that charm,
Now the wings of silence bear
Distinct along the listening air.
Thus as the airy harp reclined
Moves to the whispers of the wind,
And, in return, from all its strings
With more melodious music rings;
The curious ear, in ecstasies,
Vibrates to Nature's harmonies,
And strives the rapture to repay
By mimic echoes of her lay.
SWEET birds, whose songs and woodnotes wild
Cheer my walk at morning mild,
While I trace the hayfield round,
The margin of this grassy mound;
Full pleasant are your lays to me,
Gentle warblers, fond and free;
More welcome far than vernal showers;
Chanted from your happy bowers,
Built on Cherwell's alder'd edge,
Mid the hawthorn-blooming hedge;
Sweet birds, those bowers no more shall be
To you retreat, or joy to me:
As late near yon unsullied stream
I framed my fond poetic theme,
Near my path, upon the ground,
Recent from the cruel wound,
Fallen from his native spray,
A bleeding linnet panting lay..
Fly, fly, sweet birds, these limits fly,
For see, your barbarous foe is nigh,
And aims at your devoted breath
His iron weapon charged with death!
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