While happiness evades the busy crowd,
In rural coverts loves the maid to shroud.
And thou too, Inspiration, whose wild flame
Shoots with electric swiftness through the frame,
Thou here dost love to sit with up-turn'd eye,
And listen to the stream that murmurs by,
The woods that wave, the gray owl's silken flight,
The mellow music of the listening night.
Congenial calms, more welcome to my breast
Than maddening joy in dazzling lustre dress'd,
To Heaven my prayers, my daily prayers, I raise,
That ye may bless my unambitious days;
Withdrawn, remote, from all the haunts of strife,
May trace with me the lowly vale of life,
And when his banner Death shall o'er me wave,
May keep your peaceful vigils on my grave.
Now as I rove, where wide the prospect grows,
A livelier light upon my vision flows;

No more above th' embracing branches meet,
No more the river gurgles at my feet,

But seen deep down the cliff's impending side,
Through hanging woods, now gleams its silver tide.
Dim is my upland path,-across the Green
Fantastic shadows fling, yet oft between

The chequer'd glooms, the moon her chaste ray sheds,
Where knots of blue bells droop their graceful heads,
And beds of violets blooming 'mid the trees,
Load with waste fragrance the nocturnal breeze.
Say, why does Man, while to his opening sight
Each shrub presents a source of chaste delight,
And Nature bids for him her treasures flow,
And gives to him alone his bliss to know,
Why does he pant for Vice's deadly charms?
Why clasp the syren Pleasure to his arms;

And suck deep draughts of her voluptuous breath,
Though fraught with ruin, infamy and death?
Could he who thus to vile enjoyment clings,
Know what calm joy from purer sources springs;
Could he but feel how sweet, how free from strife,
The harmless pleasures of a harmless life,
No more his soul would pant for joys impure,
The deadly chalice would no more allure,
But the sweet portion he was wont to sip,
Would turn to poison on his conscious lip.

Fair Nature! thee, in all thy varied charms,
Fain would I clasp for ever in my arms!
Thine are the sweets which never, never sate,
Thine still remain through all the storms of fate.
Though not for me 'twas Heaven's divine command
To roll in acres of paternal land,

Yet still my lot is bless'd, while I enjoy
Thine opening beauties with a lover's eye.
Happy is he, who, though the cup of bliss
Has ever shunn'd him when he thought to kiss;
Who, still in abject poverty or pain,
Can count with pleasure what small joys remain :
Though, were his sight convey'd from zone to zone,
He would not find one spot of ground his own,
Yet, as he looks around, he cries with glee,
These bounding prospects all were made for me:
For me yon waving fields their burden bear,

For me yon labourer guides the shining share,
While happy I in idle ease recline,

And mark the glorious visions as they shine.
This is the charm, by sages often told,
Converting all its touches into gold.

Content can soothe, where'er by fortune placed,
Can rear a garden in the desert waste.

How lovely, from this hill's superior height,
Spreads the wide view before my straining sight!
O'er many a varied mile of lengthening ground
E'en to the blue-ridged hill's remotest bound,
My ken is borne: while o'er my head serene,
The silver moon illumes the misty scene;
Now shining clear, now darkening in the glade,
In all the soft varieties of shade.

Behind me, lo! the peaceful hamlet lies,
The drowsy god has seal'd the cotter's eyes.
No more, where late the social faggot blazed,
The vacant peal resounds, by little raised;
But lock'd in silence, o'er Arion's* star

The slumbering Night rolls on her velvet car:
The church-bell tolls, deep-sounding down the glade,
The solemn hour for walking spectres made;
The simple plough-boy, wakening with the sound,
Listens aghast, and turns him startled round,
Then stops his ears, and strives to close his eyes,
Lest at the sound some grisly ghost should rise.
Now ceased the long and monitory toll,
Returning silence stagnates in the soul;

Save when, disturb'd by dreams, with wild affright,
The deep-mouth'd mastiff bays the troubled night:
Or where the village ale-house crowns the vale,
The creaking sign-post whistles to the gale.
A little onward let me bend my way,

Where the moss'd seat invites the traveller's stay.
That spot, oh! yet it is the very same;
That hawthorn gives it shade, and gave
it name:
There yet the primrose opes its earliest bloom,
There yet the violet sheds its first perfume,

* The Constellation Delphinus. For authority for this appellation, vide Ovid's Fasti, B. xi. 113.

And in the branch that rears above the rest
The robin unmolested builds its nest.

'Twas here, when hope, presiding o'er my breast,
In vivid colours every prospect dress'd:
'Twas here, reclining, I indulged her dreams,
And lost the hour in visionary schemes.
Here, as I press once more the ancient seat,
Why, bland deceiver! not renew the cheat?
Say, can a few short years this change achieve,
That thy illusions can no more deceive?
Time's sombrous tints have every view o'erspread,
And thou too, gay seducer; art thou fled?
Though vain thy promise, and thy suit severe,
Yet thou couldst guile Misfortune of her tear;
And oft thy smiles across life's gloomy way
Could throw a gleam of transitory day.
How gay, in youth, the flattering future seems;
How sweet is manhood in the infant's dreams!
The dire mistake too soon is brought to light,
And all is buried in redoubled night.
Yet some can rise superior to their pain,
And in their breasts the charmer Hope retain:
While others, dead to feeling, can survey,
Unmoved, their fairest prospects fade away:
But yet a few there be,-too soon o'ercast!
Who shrink unhappy from the adverse blast,
And woo the first bright gleam, which breaks the
To gild the silent slumbers of the tomb. [gloom,
So in these shades the early primrose blows,
Too soon deceived by suns and melting snows;
So falls untimely on the desert waste,
Its blossoms withering in the northern blast.

Now pass'd whate'er the upland heights display,
Down the steep cliff I wind my devious way;

Oft rousing, as the rustling path I beat,
The timid hare from its accustom'd seat.

And oh! how sweet this walk, o'erhung with wood,
That winds the margin of the solemn flood!
What rural objects steal upon

the sight!
What rising views prolong the calm delight!
The brooklet branching from the silver Trent,
The whispering birch by every zephyr bent,
The woody island, and the naked mead,
The lowly hut half hid in groves of reed,
The rural wicket, and the rural stile,

And, frequent interspersed, the woodman's pile.
Above, below, where'er I turn my eyes,
Rocks, waters, woods, in grand succession rise.
High up the cliff the varied groves ascend,
And mournful larches o'er the wave impend.
Around, what sounds, what magic sounds, arise,
What glimmering scenes salute my ravish'd eyes!
Soft sleep the waters on their pebbly bed,
The woods wave gently o'er my drooping head,
And, swelling slow, comes wafted on the wind
Lorn Progne's note from distant copse behind.
Still every rising sound of calm delight
Stamps but the fearful silence of the night,
Save when is heard, between each dreary rest,
Discordant from her solitary nest,

The owl, dull-screaming to the wandering moon,
Now riding, cloud-wrapt, near her highest noon:
Or when the wild-duck, southering, hither rides,
And plunges sullen in the sounding tides.

How oft, in this sequester'd spot, when youth
Gave to each tale the holy force of truth,
Have I long linger'd, while the milk-maid sung
The tragic legend, till the woodland rung!