The misty streams that wind below,
With silver-spangling lustre glow;
The
groves and castled cliffs

appear
Invested all in radiance clear;
O! every village charm beneath!
The smoke that mounts in azure wreath!
O beauteous, rural interchange !
The simple spire, and elmy grange!
Content, indulging blissful hours,
Whistles o'er the fragrant flowers,
And cattle, rous?d to pasture new,
Shake jocund from their sides the dew.

'Tis thou, alone, O Summer mild, Canst bid me carol wood-notes wild : Whene'er I view thy genial scenes, Thy waving woods, embroider'd greens, What fires within my

bosom wake, How glows my mind the reed to take ! What charms like thine the muse can call, With whom 'tis youth and laughter all ! With whom each field's a paradise, And all the globe a bower of bliss! With thee conversing, all the day, I meditate my lightsome lay. These pedant cloisters let me leave, To breathe my votive song at eve,

In vallies, where mild whispers use ,'
Of shade and stream, to court the muse;
While wandering o’er the brook's dim verge,
I hear the stock-dove's dying dirge.

But when life's busier scene is o'er, And Age shall give the tresses hoar, I'd fly soft Luxury's marble dome, And make an humble thatch my home, Which sloping hills around inclose, Where many a beech and brown oak grows; Beneath whose dark and branching bowers Its tides a far-fam'd river pours: By Nature's beauties taught to please, Sweet Tusculane of rural ease! Still grot of Peace! in lowly shed Who loves to rest her gentle head. For not the scenes of Attic art Can comfort care, or sooth the heart : Nor burning cheek, nor wakeful eye, For gold and Tyrian purple fly.

Thither, kind Heav'n, in pity lent,
Send me a little, and content ;
The faithful friend, and cheerful night,
The social scene of dear delight:
The conscience pure, the temper gay,
The musing eve, and idle day.

1

Give me beneath cool shades to sit,
Rapt with the charms of classic wit :
To catch the bold heroic flame,
That built immortal Græcia's fame.
Nor let me fail, meantime, to raise
The solemn song to Britain's praise :
To spurn the shepherd's simple reeds,
And paint heroic ancient deeds :
To chant fam'd Arthur's magic tale,
And Edward, stern in sable mail;
Or wandering Brutus' lawless doom,
Or brave Bonduca, scourge of Rome.

O ever to sweet Poësy
Let me live true votary!
She shall lead me by the hand,
Queen of sweet smiles, and solace bland!
She from her precious stures shall shed
Ambrosial flowerets o'er my head;
She, from my tender youthful cheek,
Can wipe, with lenient finger meek,
The secret and unpitied tear,
Which still I drop in darkness drear.
She shall be my blooming bride;
With her, as years successive glide,
I'll hold divinest dalliance,
For ever held in holy trance.

ODE ON THE SPRING.

[Grav.]

Lo! where the rosy-bosom’d Hours,

Fair Venus' train, appear, Disclose the long-expected flowers,

And wake the purple year! The Attic warbler pours

her throat, Responsive to the cuckoo's note,

The untaught harmony of Spring : While, whispering pleasure as they fly, Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky

Their gather'd fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch

A broader browner shade,
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech

O'er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think

(At ease reclin'd in rustic state) How vain the ardour of the crowd, How low, how little are the proud,

How indigent the Great !

Still is the toiling hand of Care ;

The panting herds repose :
Yet hark, how through the peopled air

The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,

And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o’er the current skim,
Some shew their gaily-gilded trim

Quick-glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye

Such is the race of Man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,

Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter through life's little day,

In Fortune's varying colours drest : Brush'd by the hand of rough mischance, Or chill'd by age, their airy dance

They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear, in accents low,

The sportive kind reply:
Poor Moralist! and what art thou ?

A solitary fly!