Contrasted with the graceful form of her,
The Trojan captive,' who with eyes uprais'd
Sat fix'd to marble near him.-Mournful now
The trav❜ller sheds a tear upon thy fall,
And views the wild goat brouse where warriors kept The midnight watch, hears the lone shepherd's pipe 170 Where martial symphonies sounded the charge
Of battle; and beholds recumbent flocks
Pressing the dust where kindred monarchs sleep
Beneath the sepulchre's majestic dome.
This was the land of heroes; ev'ry spot
Still bears the footsteps of a mighty race
Swept from the earth. These walls and ruin'd tow'rs, Cyclopian fabric, whose least block appears
As riv'n by wint'ry torrents and by winds
From the huge precipice, proclaim the work
Of an heroic age, and to the mind
Incredulous, confirm what bards have sung
Of rocks by warriors hurl'd, and lances driven
Thro' seven-fold shields by their unwearied arms.
Whilst we, the progeny of pigmy sires,
Who faint with toil and languish with disease,
If sultrier suns or fiercer blasts assail
Our limbs, unharden'd by athletic toil,
Hear of such deeds with wonder, nor believe
A tale which brands us with a mark of shame.
So many years have pass'd since first the pipe
Of Pastoral Simplicity was heard;
And that long interval has been so stain'd
With crimes, so blotted with deformities
Of pestilence, of famine, and of war;
Our moral sense has been so dull'd by time,
And by the rude attrition of the world,
That the fond tales which Poesy has left
Of rural innocence and earthly bliss,
Seem dreams of Fancy ; yet could we believe
The pleasing tale that such an age has been,
And that Felicity once dwelt on earth
With man, 'twas here she rais'd her rustic shed,
Here 'midst the blooming vales of Arcady.
And we will often pause amidst her vales,
And with our oaten reed resound the charms
Of fair Arcadia, till the peeping Fauns
And uncouth Satyrs, raise their pointed ears
To listen to our song, and mighty Pan
Snatch from the oaken bough, which dark imbrowns 210
His cool retreat of cave and dripping rock,
The rural pipe, and join our simple lay.
Haste we along, the breezes sleep, the sky
Is now suffus'd with ev'ning's softest tints
Of red and orange, green and silv'ry gray,
Melting in floods of amber. Calm the air
Wafts thousand odours from each thymy field,
And woodbine bow'r, and bank with roses fring'd.
Wide glows the valley broken into knoll
The myrtle its dusk leaves, and on our path
Show'rs spangled flowrets; round each jutting crag,
Pomegranate twin'd with oleander, form
Light shade of cool recess, the fabled haunt
Of sylvan Deities; and overhead
The stately growth of ilex and of plane,
And oak coëval with the rural age
Of Innocence. Where their disparting boughs
Shew wider prospect, sunny lawns are seen,
And level downs, o'er which the shepherd boy,
In antique garment clad, with sandall'd foot
Follows his flocks with crook and rustic pipe,
Breathing his untaught lays. More distant swell
The azure mountains, mingling with the skies,
Not ridg'd in gloomy peaks, but heaving high,
In graceful undulation, their broad crests,
And wood-encinctur'd bosoms. Rivers roll
Their sinuous course, now with a silver light
Glitt'ring, now pouring their brown streams beneath 245
The shade of pendent boughs, or ruin'd walls
Of ancient towns; or darker still engulph'd
In narrow glens, o'er rock and mossy stone
Dashing their waters with a mournful sound.
Their murmurs join'd with the low hum of bees,
The bark of watch-dog, and the past'ral reed
Of shepherd, in the distant valley heard,
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