Some time walking not unfeen
By hedge-row elms, on hillocs green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great fun begins his ftate,
Rob'd in flames and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight,
While the plow-man near at hand
Whiftles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid fingeth blithe,
And the mower whets his fithe,
And every fhepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Strait mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilft the landskip round it measures,
Ruffet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do ftray,
Mountains on whofe barren breast
The laboring 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 neighboring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney fmokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrfis met,
Are at their favory dinner fet
Of herbs, and other country meffes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in hafte her bower fhe leaves,
With Theftylis to bind the sheaves;
Or if the earlier season lead
To the tann'd haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with fecure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecs found
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd fhade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a funfhine holy-day,
Till the live-long day-light fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How faery Mab the junkets eat,
She was pincht and pull'd, fhe faid,
And he by frier's lanthorn led
Tells how the drudging Goblin fwet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly fet,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His fhadowy flale hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-laborers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbar fiend,
And ftretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Bafks at the fire his hairy ftrength,
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds foon lull'd afleep.
Towred cities pleafe us then,
And the bufy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With ftore of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear
In faffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feaft, and revelry,
With mask and antique pageantry,
Such fights as youthful poets dream,
On fummer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anony
If Jonfon's learned fock be on,
Or fweeteft Shakespear, fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in foft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting foul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwifting all the chains that ty
The hidden foul of harmony;
That Orpheus' felf may heave his head
From golden flumber on a bed
Of heapt Elyfian flowers, and hear
Such ftrains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite fet free
His half-regain'd Eurydice.
Thefe delights if thou canft give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
ENCE, vain deluding joys,
The brood of
The brood of folly without father
How little you befted,
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys! Dwell in some idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy fhapes poffefs, As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that people the fun-beams,
Or likelieft hovering dreams
The fickle penfioners of Morpheus' train.
But hail, thou Goddess, fage and holy !
Hail, divineft Melancholy !
Whofe faintly visage is too bright
To hit the fenfe of human fight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, ftaid wisdom's hue;
Black, but fuch as in esteem
Prince Memnon's fifter might beseem,
Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove
To fet her beauties' praise above
The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended:
Yet thou art higher far defcended,
Thee bright-hair'd Vefta long of yore
To folitary Saturn bore;
His daughter fhe (in Saturn's reign,
Such mixture was not held a stain).
Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
He met her, and in fecret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, penfive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, ftedfaft, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And fable stole of Cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent fhoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted ftate,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt foul fitting in thine eyes:
There held in holy paffion still,
Forget thyfelf to marble, till
With a fad leaden downward caft
Thou fix them on the earth as faft:
And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,
Spare Faft, that oft with Gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring
Ay round about Jove's altar fing:
And add to these retired Leifure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
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