Against the birth of May: and, vested so,
Thou dost appear more gracefully array'd
Than fashion-mongering fops, whose gaudy shows, Fantastical as are a sick man's dreams, From vanity to costly vanity
Change oftener than the moon. Thy comely dress, From sad to gay returning with the year,
Shall grace thee still till Nature's self shall change. These are the beauties of thy woodland scene At each return of spring: yet some delight Rather to view the change, and fondly gaze On fading colours, and the thousand tints Which Autumn lays upon the varying leaf: I like them not, for all their boasted hues Are kin to sickliness; mortal decay Is drinking up their vital juice; that gone, They turn to sear and yellow. Should I praise Such false complexions, and for beauty take A look consumption-bred? As soon, if gray Were mix'd in young Louisa's tresses brown, I'd call it beautiful variety, And therefore dote on her. A beauty in that fruitful change, when comes The yellow Autumn and the hopes of the year Brings on to golden ripeness; nor dispraise The pure and spotless form of that sharp time, When January spreads a pall of snow O'er the dead face of the' undistinguish'd earth. Then stand I in the hollow comb beneath, And bless this friendly mount, that weather-fends My reed-roof'd cottage, while the wintry blast From the thick north comes howling: till the Spring Return, who leads my devious steps abroad, To climb, as now, to Lewesdon's airy top.
Through Towey's vale winds velvet soft and green.
The year is in its waning autumn glow,
But the warm sun with all his summer love
Hangs o'er this gentle valley, loath to part From the blue stream that to his amorous beams Now her cool bosom spreads, now coyer slides Under her alder shade, whose umbrage green, Glancing and breaking the fantastic rays, The deep dark mirror frets with mazy light. A day that seems in its rich noon to blend All seasons' choice deliciousness, high hung On Dinevaur and Carreg Cennon rude, And on bold Drusslyn gleam'd the woods their hues, Changeful and brilliant, as their leaves had drunk The sun's empyreal fountains; not more bright The groves of those Atlantic isles, where rove (Dream'd elder poesy such fancies sweet) The spirits of the brave, stern Peleus' son, And Diomede, through bowers that the blue air Arch'd with immortal spring of fragrant gold. The merry birds, as though they had o'erdream'd The churlish winter, spring tide virelays Carolling, pruned their all-forgotten plumes. Upon the sunny shallow lay the trout, Kindling the soft gems of its skin; the snake As fresh and wanton in its green attire Wound its gay rings along the flowery sward.
SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN UNDER THE RUINS OF RUFUS'S CASTLE, AMONG THE REMAINS
OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH ON THE ISLE OF PORTLAND.
CHAOTIC pile of barren stone,
That Nature's hurrying hand has thrown, Half finish'd, from the troubled waves; On whose rude brow the rifted tower Has frown'd through many a stormy hour, On this drear site of tempest-beaten graves;
Sure Desolation loves to shroud
His giant form within the cloud
That hovers round thy rugged head; And as through broken vaults beneath, The future storms, low-muttering, breathe, Hears the complaining voices of the dead.
Here marks the fiend with eager eyes, Far out at sea the fogs arise
That dimly shade the beacon'd strand, And listens the portentous roar
Of sullen waves as on the shore
Monotonous they burst, and tell the storm at
Northward the Demon's eyes are cast
O'er yonder bare and sterile waste,
Where, born to hew and heave the block,
Man, lost in ignorance and toil,
Becomes associate to the soil,
And his heart hardens like his native rock.
On the bleak hills, with flint o'erspread, No blossoms rear the purple head;
No shrub perfumes the zephyr's breath; But o'er the cold and cheerless down Grim Desolation seems to frown,
Blasting the ungrateful soil with partial death.
Here the scathed trees, with leaves half-dress'd, Shade no soft songster's secret nest,
Whose spring-notes soothe the pensive ear; But high the croaking cormorant flies, And mews and hawks with clamorous cries Tire the lone echoes of these caverns drear.
Perchance among the ruins gray Some widow'd mourner loves to stray, Marking the melancholy main Where once afar she could discern O'er the white waves his sail return, Who never, never now returns again!
On these lone tombs, by storms up-torn, The hopeless wretch may lingering mourn, Till from the ocean, rising red, The misty Moon with lurid ray Lights her, reluctant, on her way, To steep in tears her solitary bed.
Hence the dire spirit oft surveys The ship that to the western bays
With favouring gales pursues its course; Then calls the vapour dark that blinds
The pilot-calls the felon winds
That heave the billows with resistless force.
Commixing with the blotted skies,
High and more high the wild waves rise,
Till, as impetuous torrents urge,
Driven on yon fatal bank accursed,
The vessel's massy timbers burst,
And the crew sinks beneath the infuriate surge.
There finds the weak an early grave, While youthful strength the whelming wave Repels; and, labouring for the land With shorten'd breath and upturn'd eyes, Sees the rough shore above him rise,
Nor dreams that rapine meets him on the strand.
And are there then in human form Monsters more savage than the storm, Who from the gasping sufferer tear The dripping weed?-who dare to reap The inhuman harvest of the deep,
From half-drown'd victims whom the tempests spare?
Ah! yes, by avarice once possess'd
No pity moves the rustic breast;
Callous he proves-as those who haply wait Till I (a pilgrim weary worn)
To my own native land return,
With legal toils to drag me to my fate!
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