Page images
PDF
EPUB

When young-ey'd Spring profufely throws
From her green lap the pink and rose ;
When the foft turtle of the dale
To Summer tells her tender tale;
When Autumn cooling caverns feeks,
And ftains with wine his jolly cheeks;
When Winter, like poor pilgrim old,
Shakes his filver beard with cold,
At ev'ry feafon let my ear

Thy folemn whispers, Fancy, hear.
O, warm enthusiastic maid !
Without thy pow'rful, vital aid,
That breathes an energy divine,
That gives a foul to ev'ry line;
Ne'er may I ftrive with lips profane
To utter an unhallowed strain,
Nor dare to touch the facred ftring,
Save when with smiles thou bid'ft me fing.
O hear our pray❜r, O hither come
From thy lamented Shakspeare's tomb,
On which thou lov't to fit at eve,
Mufing o'er thy darling grave;
O Queen of numbers! once again
Animate fome chosen swain,
Who fill'd with unexhaufted fire
May boldly ftrike the founding lyre,
May rife above the rhyming throng,
And with fome new unequall'd fong
O'er all our lift'ning paffions reign,
O'erwhelm our fouls with joy and pain ;
With terror shake, with pity move,
Rouze with revenge, or melt with love.

O deign

O deign t'attend this evening walk,
With him in groves and grottoes talk:
Teach him to fcorn with frigid art
Feebly to touch th' enraptur'd heart;
Like light'ning let his mighty verse
The bofom's inmoft foldings pierce :
With native beauties win applaufe,
Beyond cold critic's ftudied laws:
O let each Mufe's fame increase,
O bid Britannia rival Greece !

WARTONS

HENCE!

CHAP. XVI.

L'ALLEGRO.

ENCE! loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus, and blackest Midnight born,

In Stygian cave forlorn

'Mongft horrid shapes, and fhrieks, and fights unholy, Find out fome uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night raven fings;

There under ebon fhades, and low-brow'd rocks, As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian defert ever dwell.

But come, thou goddefs, fair and free,
In heav'n yclep'd Euphrofyne,
And by men, heart-eafing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two fifter Graces more
To ivy crown'd Bacchus bore;

Or whether (as fome fages fing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a Maying,
There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown rofes wafh'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Hafte thee, Nymph! and bring with thee Jeft and youthful Jollity,

Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek
And love to live in dimple fleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his fides,
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain Nymph, fweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew

To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And finging ftartle the dull night
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rife;
Then to come in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the fweet-brier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:

While the cock with lively din

Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the ftack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly ftruts his dames before,
Oft lift'ning how the hounds and horn
Cheerly roufe the flumb'ring morn,
From the fide of fome hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing fhrill :
Some time walking not unfeen

By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great fun begins his state,
Rob'd in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thoufand liveries dight,
While the ploughman near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk-maid fingeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale,

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,

Whilft the landscape round it measures,

Ruffet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbing flocks do ftray,
Mountains on whofe barren breast
The labouring clouds do often reft,
Meadows trim with daifies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide,
Towers and battlements it fees
Bofom'd high in tufted trees,

Where perhaps fome beauty lies,
The Cynofure of neighbouring eyes..

[blocks in formation]

Hard by, a Cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrfis met,
Are at their favoury dinner fet
Of herbs and other country meffes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dreffes ; :
And then in hafte her bower fhe leaves,
With Theftylis to bind the fheaves;
Or if the earlier feafon lead.
To the tann'd hay-cock in the mead.
Sometimes with fecure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks found

To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a funshine holiday,

Till the live-long day light fail; -
Then to the fpicy nut-brown ale,
With ftories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets eat;:
She was pinch'd, and pull'd, she said,
And he by a friar's lanthorn led.
Tells how the drudging goblin fweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly fet,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His fhadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn
'That ten day-lab'rers could not end; :
Then lies him down, the lubbar fiend,
And ftretch'd out all the chimney's length,...
Bafk at the fire his hairy ftrength,

And

« PreviousContinue »