Hung o'er the mazes of the mountain brook.
Vain is her best precaution, though she sits
Conceal'd with folded ears; unsleeping eyes,
By nature rais'd to take th' horizon in;
And head couch'd close betwixt her hairy feet,
In act to spring away. The scented dew
Betrays her early labyrinth; and deep,
In scatter'd sullen op'nings, far behind,
With ev'ry breeze she hears the coming storm:
But nearer, and more frequent, as it loads
The sighing gale, she springs amaz'd, and all
The savage soul of game is up at once:
The pack full op'ning, various; the shrill horn
Resounded from the hills; the neighing steed,
Wild for the chase; and the loud hunter's shout;
O'er a weak, harmless, flying creature, all
Mix'd in mad tumult and discordant joy!
The stag, too, singled from the herd, where long
He rang'd, the branching monarch of the shades,
Before the tempest drives. At first in speed
He sprightly puts his faith; and rous'd by fear,
Gives all his swift aerial soul to flight.
Against the breeze he darts, that way the more
To leave the less'ning murd'rous cry behind:
Deception short! though fleeter than the winds
Blown o'er the keen-air'd mountains by the north,
He bursts the thickets, glances through the glades,
And plunges deep into the wildest wood;
If slow, yet sure, adhesive to the track
Hot-steaming, up behind him come again
Th' inhuman rout, and from the shady depth
Expel him, circling through his ev'ry shift.
He sweeps the forest oft, and sobbing sees
The glades mild op'ning to the golden day;
Where in kind contest with his butting friends
He wont to struggle, or his loves enjoy.
Oft in the full-descending flood he tries
To lose the scent, and lave his burning sides;
Oft seeks the herd: the watchful herd alarm'd,
With selfish care avoid a brother's woe.
What shall he do? His once-so-vivid nerves,
So full of buoyant spirit, now no more
Inspire the course, but fainting breathless toil,
Sick, seizes on his heart: he stands at bay,
And puts his last weak refuge in despair.
The big round tears run down his dappled face;
He groans in anguish, while the growling pack,
Blood-happy, hang at his fair jutting chest,
And mark his beauteous chequer'd sides with gore.
DESCRIPTION OF A DRINKING SCENE.
But first the fuel'd chimney blazes wide: The tankards foam; and the strong table groans Beneath the smoking sirloin, stretch'd immense From side to side, in which with desp'rate knife They deep incision make, and talk the while Of England's glory, ne'er to be defac'd, While hence they borrow vigour; or amain Into the pasty plung'd, at intervals, If stomach keen can intervals allow, Relating all the glories of the chase. Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst Produce the mighty bowl;, the mighty bowl, Swell'd high with fiery juice, steams lib'ral round A potent gale, delicious as the breath Of Maia to the love-sick shepherdess,
On violets diffus'd, while soft she hears
Her panting shepherd stealing to her arms.
Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn
Mature and perfect from his dark retreat
Of thirty years: and now his honest front
Flames in the light refulgent, not afraid
Ev'n with the vineyard's best produce to vie.
To cheat the thirsty moments, whist awhile
Walks his dull round beneath a cloud of smoke,
Wreath'd fragrant from the pipe; or the quick dice,
In thunder leaping from the box, awake
The sounding gammon; while romp-loving miss
Is haul'd about in gallantry robust.
At last these puling idlenesses laid
Aside, frequent and full the dry divan
Close in firm circle, and set ardent in
For serious drinking. Nor evasion sly,
Nor sober shift is to the puking wretch
Indulg'd apart; but earnest brimming bowls
Lave ev'ry soul, the table floating round,
And pavement, faithless to the fuddled foot.
Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk,
Vociferous at once from twenty tongues,
Reels fast from theme to theme; from horses, hounds,
To church or mistress, politics or ghost,
In endless mazes intricate perplex'd.
Meantime with sudden interruption loud
Th' impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart;
That moment touch'd is ev'ry kindred soul,
And, op'ning in a full-mouth'd cry of joy,
The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse, go round;
While from their slumbers shook, the kennel'd hounds
Mix in the music of the day again.
As when the tempest, that has vex'd the deep
The dark night long, with fainter murmur falls,
So, gradual, sinks their mirth. Their feeble tongues,
Unable to take up the cumbrous word,
Lie quite dissolv'd. Before their maudlin eyes,
Seen dim and blue the double tapers dance,
Like the sun wading through the misty sky;
Then sliding soft they drop. Confus'd above,
Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers,
As if the table ev'n itself was drunk,
Lie a wet broken scene; and wide below
Is heap'd the social slaughter; where astride
The lubber Pow'r in filthy triumph sits
Slumb'rous, inclining still from side to side,
And steeps them drench'd in potent sleep till mom
Perhaps some doctor of tremendous paunch,
Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink!
Outlives them all, and from his bury'd flock
Retiring full of rumination sad,
Laments the weakness of these latter times.
Now, by the cool declining year condens'd, Descend the copious exhalations check'd As up the middle sky unseen they stole, And roll the doubling fogs around the hill. No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime, Who pours a sweep of rivers from his sides, And high between contending kingdoms rears The rocky long division, fills the view With great variety; but in a night Of gath'ring vapour from the bafiled sense Sinks dark and dreary; thence expanding far,
The huge dusk gradual swallows up the plain:
Vanish the woods; the dim-seen river seems
Sullen and slow to roll the misty wave.
Ev'n in the height of noon oppress'd the sun
Sheds weak and blunt his wide-refracted ray,
Whence glaring oft with many a broaden❜d orb
He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth,
Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life
Objects appear, and wilder'd o'er the waste
The shepherd stalks gigantic: till at last
Wreath'd dun around in deeper circles still
Successive closing, sits the gen'ral fog
Unbounded o'er the world, and, mingling thick,
A formless gray confusion covers all.
THE PLEASURES OF RETIREMENT.
Oh! knew he but his happiness, of men The happiest he, who, far from public rage, Deep in the vale with a choice few retir'd, Drinks the pure pleasures of the rural life.
Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart,
Takes what she lib'ral gives, nor thinks of more.
He, when young spring protrudes the bursting gems,
Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale
Into his freshen'd soul; her genial hours
He full enjoys, and not a beauty blows,
And not an op'ning blossom breathes in vain.
In summer he beneath the living shade,
Such as o'er frigid Tempe wont to wave,
Or Hemus cool, reads what the Muse of these
Perhaps has in immortal numbers sung;
Or what she dictates, writes; and oft an eye
Shot round, rejoices in the vig'rous year.
When autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world,
And tempts the sickled swain into the field,
Seiz'd by the gen'ral joy his heart distends
With gentle throes, and through the tepid gleams
Deep-musing, then he best exerts his song.
Ev'n winter wild to him is full of bliss.
The mighty tempest and the hoary waste,
What though the dome be wanting, whose proud gate Abrupt and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth,
Each morning vomits out the sneaking crowd
Of flatt'rers false, and in their turn abus'd?
Vile intercourse! What though the glitt'ring robe,
Of ev'ry hue reflected light can give,
Or floating loose or stiff with massy gold;
The pride and gaze of fools! oppress him not?
What though from utmost land and sea purvey'd,
For him each rarer tributary life
Bleeds not, and his insatiate table heaps
With luxury and death? What though his bowl
Flames not with costly juice, nor, sunk in beds
Oft of gay care, he tosses out the night,
Or melts the thoughtless hours in idle state?
What though he knows not those fantastic joys
That still amuse the wanton, still deceive,
A face of pleasure, but a heart of pain,
Their hollow moments undelighted all?
Sure peace is his; a solid life, estrang'd
To disappointment and fallacious hope:
Rich in content, in nature's bounty rich,
In herbs and fruits, whatever greens the spring,
When heav'n descends in show'rs, or bends the bough,
When summer reddens, and when autumn beams,
Or in the wintry glebe whatever lies
Conceal'd, and fattens with the richest sap,
These are not wanting; nor the milky drove,
Luxuriant, spread o'er all the lowing vale;
Nor bleating mountains; nor the chide of streams,
And hum of bees, inviting sleep sincere
Into the guiltless breast beneath the shade,
Or thrown at large amid the fragrant hay;
Nor aught besides of prospect, grove, or song,
Dim grottoes, gleaming lakes, and fountains clear.
Here, too, dwells simple truth, plain innocence,
Unsully'd beauty, sound unbroken youth,
Patient of labour, with a little pleas'd:
Health ever-blooming, unambitious toil,
Calm contemplation, and poetic ease.
The rage of nations, and the crush of states,
Move not the man, who, from the world escap'd,
In still retreats and flow'ry solitudes
To nature's voice attends, from month to month,
And day to day, through the revolving year;
Admiring sees her in her ev'ry shape,
Awake to solemn thought. At night the skies,
Disclos'd and kindled by refining frost,
Pour ev'ry lustre on th' exalted eye.
A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure,
And mark them down for wisdom. With swift wing,
O'er land and sea imagination roams;
Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind,
Elates his being, and unfolds his pow'rs;
Or in his breast heroic virtue burns.
The touch of kindred, too, and love he feels;
The modest eye, whose beams on his alone
Ecstatic shine; the little strong embrace
Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck,
And emulous to please him, calling forth
The fond parental soul. Nor purpose gay,
Amusement, dance, or song, he sternly scorns;
For happiness and true philosophy
Are of the social, still and smiling kind.
This is the life which those who fret in guilt,
And guilty cities never knew; the life
Led by primeval ages uncorrupt,
When angels dwelt, and God himself, with man!
When from the pallid sky the sun descends,
With many a spot that o'er his glaring orb
Uncertain wanders, stain'd; red-fiery streaks
Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds
Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet
Which master to obey; while rising slow,
Blank, in the leaden-colour'd east, the moon
Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns.
Seen through the turbid fluctuating air,
The stars obtuse emit a shiver'd ray,
Or frequent seem to shoot athwart the gloom,
And long behind them trail the whitening blaze.
Snatch'd in short eddies plays the wither'd leaf,
And on the flood the dancing feather floats.
With broaden'd nostrils to the sky upturn'd,
The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale.
Ev'n as the matron at her nightly task
With pensive labour draws the flaxen thread,
The wasted taper and the crackling flame
Foretel the blast. But chief the plumy race,
The tenants of the sky, its changes speak.
Retiring from the downs, where all day long
They pick'd their scanty fare, a black'ning train
Of clam'rous rooks thick urge their weary flight,
And seek the closing shelter of the grove.
Assiduous in his bow'r the wailing owl
Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high
Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land.
Loud shrieks the soaring hern; and with wild wing
The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds.
Ocean, unequal press'd, with broken tide
And blind commotion heaves, while from the shore,
Eat into caverns by the restless wave,
And forest-rustling mountains, comes a voice
That, solemn-sounding, bids the world prepare:
Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst,
And hurls the whole precipitated air
Down in a torrent.
The keener tempests rise; and fuming dun,'
From all the livid east or piercing north
Thick clouds ascend, in whose capacious womb
A vap'ry deluge lies, to snow congeal'd.
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along,
And the sky saddens with the gather'd storm.
Through the hush'd air the whit'ning show'r descends,
At first thin wav'ring, till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherish'd fields
Put on their winter robe of purest white:
'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low the woods
Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid sun,
Faint, from the west emits his ev'ning ray,
Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill,
Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the lab'rer-ox
Stands cover'd o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heav'n,
Tam'd by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The redbreast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of th' embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shiv'ring mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half afraid, he first
Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,
And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is!
Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
Urg'd on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heav'n, and next the glist'ning earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispers'd,
Dig for the wither'd herb through heaps of snow.
As thus the snows arise, and foul and fierce
All winter drives along the darken'd air,
In his own loose-revolving fields the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow, and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain;
Nor finds the river nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray,
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of
home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul!
What black despair, what horror, fills his heart!
When for the dusky spot which fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track and bless'd abode of man;
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And ev'ry tempest howling o'er his head
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the pow'r of frost;
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge
Smooth'd up with snow; and what is land unknown,
What water of the still-unfrozen spring,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps, and down he sinks
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends, unseen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm:
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On ev'ry nerve
The deadly winter seizes, shuts up sense,
And o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows a stiffen'd corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
Steam'd eager from the red horizon round,
With the fierce rage of Winter deep suffus'd,
An icy gale, oft shifting o'er the pool,
Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career
Arrests the bick'ring stream. The loosen'd ice,
Let down the flood, and half dissolv'd by day,
Rustles no more, but to the sedgy bank
Fast grows, or gathers round the pointed stone,
A crystal pavement, by the breath of Heav'n
Cemented firm, till, seiz'd from shore to shore,
The whole imprison'd river growls below.
Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects
A double noise, while at his ev'ring watch
The village dog deters the nightly thief:
The heifer lows; the distant waterfall
Swells in the breeze; and with the hasty tread
Of traveller the hollow-sounding plain
Shakes from afar. The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and all one cope
Of starry glitter glows from pole to pole.
From pole to pole the rigid influence falls
Through the still night, incessant, heavy, strong,
And seizes nature fast. It freezes on,
Till morn, late rising o'er the drooping world,
Lifts her pale eye unjoyous. Then appears
The various labour of the silent night:
Prone from the dripping cave and dumb cascade,
Whose idle torrents only seem to roar,
The pendent icicle; the frost-work fair,
Where transient hues and fancy'd figures rise;
Wide-spouted o'er the hill the frozen brook,
A livid track, cold-gleaming on the morn;
The forest bent beneath the plumy wave,
And by the frost refin'd, the whiter snow,
Incrusted hard, and sounding to the tread
Of early shepherd, as he pensive seeks
His pining flock, or from the mountain top,
Pleas'd with the slipp'ry surface, swift descends.
Pure, quick, and sportful, is the wholesome day,
But soon elaps'd. The horizontal sun
Broad o'er the south hangs at his utmost noon,
And ineffectual strikes the gelid cliff:
His azure gloss the mountain still maintains,
Nor feels the feeble touch. Perhaps the vale
Relents awhile to the reflected ray;
Or from the forest falls the cluster'd snow,
Myriads of gems, that in the waving gleam
Gay-twinkle as they scatter. Thick around
Thunders the sport of those who with the gun,
And dog impatient bounding at the shot,
Worse than the season desolate the fields,
And, adding to the ruins of the year,
Distress the footed or the feather'd game.
But what is this? our infant winter sinks,
Divested of his grandeur, should our eye
Astonish'd shoot into the frigid zone,
Where for relentless months continual night
Holds o'er the glitt'ring waste her starry reign.
There through the prison of unbounded wilds,
Barr'd by the hand of nature from escape,
Wide roams the Russian exile. Nought around
Strikes his sad eye but deserts lost in snow,
And heavy-loaded groves, and solid floods,
That stretch athwart the solitary vast
Their icy horrors to the frozen main;
And cheerless towns far distant, never bless'd,
Save when its annual course the caravan
Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay,
With news of humankind. Yet there life glows;
Yet cherish'd there beneath the shining waste
The furry nations harbour: tipp'd with jet
Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press;
Sables of glossy black: and, dark embrown'd,
Or beauteous freak'd with many a mingled hue,
Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts.
There, warm together press'd, the trooping deer
Sleep on the new fall'n snows; and scarce his head
Rais'd o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk
Lies slumb'ring, sullen in the white abyss.
The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils,
Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives
The fearful flying race; with pond'rous clubs,
As weak against the mountain heaps they push
Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray,
He lays them quiv'ring on the ensanguin'd snows,
And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home.
There, through the piny forest half absorpt,
Rough tenant of these shades, the shapeless bear,
With dangling ice all horrid, stalks forlorn;
Slow-pac'd, and sourer as the storms increase,
He makes his bed beneath th' inclement drift,
And with stern patience scorning weak complaint,
Hardens his heart against assailing want.
Wide o'er the spacious regions of the North,
That sees Boötes urge his tardy wain,
A boist'rous race, by frosty Caurus pierc'd,
Who little pleasure know, and fear no pain,
Prolific swarm. They once relum'd the flame
Of lost mankind in polish'd slav'ry sunk,
Drove martial horde on horde, with dreadful sweep
Resistless rushing o'er th' enfeebled South,
And gave the vanquish'd world another form.
Not such the sons of Lapland; wisely they
Despise th' insensate barb'rous trade of war;
They ask no more than simple nature gives;
They love their mountains and enjoy their storms:
No false desires, no pride-created wants,
Disturb the peaceful current of their time;
And through the restless ever-tortur'd maze
Of pleasure or ambition bid it rage.
Their reindeer form their riches: these their tents,
Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth,
Supply, their wholesome fare, and cheerful cups.
Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe
Yield to the sledge their necks, and whirl them swift
O'er hill and dale, heap'd into one expanse
Of marbled snow, as far as eye can sweep,
With a blue crust of ice unbounded glaz'd.
By dancing meteors then, that ceaseless shake
A waving blaze refracted o'er the heav'ns,
And vivid moons, and stars that keener play
With double lustre from the glossy waste,
Ev'n in the depth of Polar night they find
A wond'rous day; enough to light the chase,
Or guide their daring steps to Finland fairs.
Wish'd spring returns, and from the hazy south,
While dim Aurora slowly moves before,
The welcome sun, just verging up at first,
By small degrees extends the swelling curve:
Till seen at large for gay rejoicing months,
Still round and round his spiral course he winds:
And, as he nearly dips his flaming orb,
Wheels up again, and reascends the sky.
In that glad season, from the lakes and floods
Where pure Niemi's fairy mountains rise,
And fring'd with roses Tenglio rolls his stream,
They draw the copious fry. With these, at eve
They cheerful loaded to their tents repair,
Where all day long in useful cares employ'd,
Their kind unblemish'd wives the fire prepare.
Thrice happy race! by poverty secur'd
From legal plunder and rapacious power;
In whom fell int'rest never yet has sown
The seeds of vice; whose spotless swains ne'er knew
Injurious decd, nor, blasted by the breath
Of faithless love, their blooming daughters woe.
Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point, Blow hollow blust'ring from the South. Subdu'd,
The frost resolves into a trickling thaw.
Spotted the mountains shine, loose sleet descends,
And floods the country round. The rivers swell,
Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills
O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts
A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once;
And, where they rush, the wide-resounding plain
Is left one slimy waste.
Those sullen seas,
That wash'd th' ungenial pole, will rest no more
Beneath the shackles of the mighty North;
But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave.
And hark! the length'ning roar continuous runs
Athwart the rifted deep: at once it bursts,
And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds.
Ill fares the bark, with trembling wretches charg'd,
That toss'd amid the floating fragments, moors
Beneath the shelter of an icy isle,
While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks
More horrible. Can human force endure
Th' assembled mischiefs that besiege them round?
Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting, weariness,
The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceasing, now renew'd with louder rage,
And in dire echoes bellowing round the main !
More to embroil the deep, Leviathan
And his unwieldy train, in dreadful sport,
Tempest the loosen'd brine; while through the gloom,
Far from the bleak inhospitable shore,
Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl
Of famish'd monsters, there awaiting wrecks.
The castle hight of Indolence, And its false luxury;
Where for a little time, alas! We liv'd right jollily.
O MORTAL man, who livest here by toil, Do not complain of this thy hard estate; That like an emmit thou must ever moil, Is a sad sentence of an ancient date; And, certes, 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.
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 no where 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 em-
brown'd,
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,
No living wight could work, ne cared ev'n for play:
Was nought around but images of rest:
Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between ;
And flowery beds that slumberous 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 every where their waters sheen; That, as they bicker'd through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.
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 amid the forest deep, That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale; And still a coil the grasshopper did keep: Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.
Full in the passage of the vale above,
A sable, silent, solemn forest stood; Where nought but shadowy forms were seen to move, As Idlesse fancy'd in her dreaming mood: And up the hills, on either side, a wood Of blackening pines, aye 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.
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.
The landskip such, inspiring perfect ease,
Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight)
Close hid his castle mid embowering trees,
That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright,
And made a kind of checker'd day and night;
Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate,
Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight
Was plac'd; and to his lute, of cruel fate,
And labour harsh, complain'd, lamenting man's estate.
Thither continual pilgrims crowded still,
From all the roads of earth that pass thereby :
For, as they chaunc'd to breathe on neighbouring
hill,
The freshness of this valley smote their eye,
And drew them ever and anon more nigh;
Till clustering round th' enchanter false they hung,
Ymolten with his syren melody;
While o'er th' enfeebling lute his hand he flung, And to the trembling chords these tempting verses
"Behold! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold!
See all but man with unearn'd pleasure gay:
See her bright robes the butterfly unfold,
Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May!
What youthful bride can equal her array ?
Who can with her for easy pleasure vie?
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