At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to heaven.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove;
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll.
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,
Or Winter rises in the blackening East;
Be my tongue mute, may Fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!

Should fate command me to the furthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on the' Atlantic Isles; 'tis nought to me:
Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full;

And where He vital breathes there must be joy.

110

When e'en at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go
Where Universal Love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs and all their sons;1
From seeming Evil still educing Good,
And Better thence again, and Better still,
In infinite progression.—But I lose

Myself in Him, in Light ineffable!

Come then, expressive silence, muse His praise.2

115

(1) In the edition of 1738, the lines from "nought to me" do not occur. (2) "What the sun and light are to this visible world," says one of the Vedas (Sir Wm. Jones's Works, vol. vi. p. 417), "that are the supreme good and truth to the intellectual and invisible universe; and as our corporeal eyes have a distinct perception of objects enlightened by the sun, thus our souls acquire certain knowledge by meditating on the light of truth, which emanates from the Being of beings: that is the light by which alone our minds can be directed in the path to beatitude." The Gayatri, or Holiest Verse, of the Vedas is as follows:-"Let us adore the supremacy of that divine Sun, the Godhead, who illuminates all, who pervades all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understandings aright in our progress towards his holy seat."

THE

CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

CANTO I.

[This poem being writ in the manner of Spenser, the obsolete words, and a simplicity of diction in some of the lines, which borders on the ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation more perfect. And the style of that admirable poet, as well as the measure in which he wrote, are, as it were, appropriated by custom to all allegorical poems written in our language; just as in French the style of Marot, who lived under Francis I., has been used in tales, and familiar epistles, by the politest writers of the age of Louis XIV.]

The Castle hight' of Indolence,

And its false luxury;

Where for a little time, alas!
We lived right jollily.

I.

O MORTAL man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate:
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,2
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date;
And, certes,3 there is for it reason great;
For, though sometimes it makes thee weep
and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,
Withouten that would come an heavier bale-
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.

II.

In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,

With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,

Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found.

It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground;

And there a season atween June and May,

Half prankt with Spring, with Summer half imbrown'd, A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, No living wight could work, ne 5 carèd e'en for play. (1) Hight, called. (2) Moil, labour. (3) Certes, certainly. (4) Prankt, adorned, from the German pranken. (5) Ne, nor.

III.

Was nought around but images of rest: Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between ; And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kest, From poppies breath'd; and beds of pleasant green, Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd, And hurled everywhere their water's sheen; That, as they bicker'd through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.

IV.

Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills,
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale:
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves' plain 2 amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep:
Yet all these sounds yblent 3 inclined all to sleep.

V.

Full in the passage of the vale, above,

A sable, silent, solemn forest stood;

Where nought but shadowy forms were seen to move, As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood:

And up the hills, on either side, a wood

Of blackening pines, aye 5 waving to and fro,

Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;

And where this valley winded out, below,

The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.

VI.

A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
For ever flushing round a summer-sky:
There eke the soft delights, that witchingly
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,
And the calm pleasures always hover'd nigh;
But whate'er smack'd of noyance, or unrest,
Was far, far off expell'd from this delicious nest.
(2) Plain, complain.
(5) Aye, always.

(1) Kest, cast.

(4) Idless, idleness.

(3) Yblent, blended.