Towers, and battlements it fees,
Bofom'd high in tufted trees,
Wher perhaps fom beauty lies,
The cynosure of neigbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged okes,
Where Corydon and Thyrfis met,
Are at their favory dinner fet,
Of hearbs, and other country meffes, 85
Which the neat-handed Phillis dreffes;
And then in hafte her bowre the leaves,
With Theftylis to bind the fheaves;
Or if the earlier feafon lead,
To the tann'd haycock in the mead. 90
Sometimes with fecure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocond rebecks found
Το many a youth, and many a maid, 95
Dancing in the chequer'd shade;
And young and old com forth to play,
On a sunshine holyday,
Till the live-long day-light fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With ftories told of many a feat,
How faery Mab the junkets eat,
She was pincht, and pull'd fhe fed,
And he, by friars lanthorn led,
Tells how the drudging Goblin fwet, 105
To ern his cream-bowle duly fet,
When in one night, ere glimps of morn,
His fhadowy flale hath thresh'd the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbar fend, 110
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy ftrength,
And crop-full out of dores he flings,
Ere the first cock his mattin rings.
Thus don their tales, to bed they creep,
By whisp'ring winds foon lull'd afleep. 116
Towred cities please us then,
And the bufie humm of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold,
With ftore of ladies, whofe bright eies 121
Rain influence, and judge the prise
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear,
In faffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feaft, and revelry,
And mask and antique pageantry;
Such fights as youthful poets dream,
On fummer eeves by haunted ftream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonfons learned fock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespear, Fancies child, Warble his native wood-notes wilde.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in foft Lydian aires,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting foul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of lincked sweetness, long drawn out, 140
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that ty
The hidden foul of harmony:
That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden flumber on a bed
Of heapt Elyfian flowres, and hear
Such ftreins as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half regain'd Eurydice.
These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live,
HENCE, vain deluding joyes!
The brood of Folly without father bred; How little you bested,
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toyes!
Dwell in fom idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy shapes poffefs, As thick and numberless,
As the gay motes that people the fun-beams, Or likeft hovering dreams,
The fickle penfioners of Morpheus train. 10 But hail thou goddess, sage and holy, Hail divineft Melancholy,
Whose faintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human fight,
And therefore to our weaker view
Orelaid with black, ftaid Wisdoms hue;
Black, but fuch as in efteem
Prince Memnons fifter might befeem,
Or that starr'd Ethiope queen that strove
To fet her beauties praise above
The fea nymphs, and their powers offended:
Yet thou art higher far defcended;
Thee bright-hair'd Vefta long of yore
To folitary Saturn bore;
His daughter fhe (in Saturns reign 25
Such mixture was not held a ftain)
Oft in glimmering bowres and glades
He met her, and in fecret fhades
Of woody Ida's inmoft grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove. 30
Come, penfive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, ftedfaft, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majeftick train,
And fable ftole of Cipres lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Com, but keep thy wonted state,
With eev'n step, and mufing gate,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt foul fitting in thine eyes: 40
There held in holy paffion ftill,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a fad leaden downward caft
Thou fix them on the earth as fast.
And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet, Spare Faft, that oft with gods doth diet, And hears the Muses in a ring
Ay round about Joves altar fing:
And add to these retired Leafure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure :
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