From the fide of fome hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing fhrill:
Some time walking, not unseen,
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 thousand liveries dight,
While the plowman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk-maid fingeth blithe,
And the mower whets his fcythe,
And every fhepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Strait mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the landskip round it measures,
Ruffet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do ftray.
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The lab'ring 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 neighb'ring eyes.
Hard by a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrfis, met,
Are at their favory dinner fet,
Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat handed Phillis dreffes;
And then, in haste, her bow'r she leaves,
With Theftylis to bind the fheaves;
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 fun-fhine holy-day,
Till the live-long day-light fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With ftories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets eat,
She was pincht and pull'd, The faid,
And he by fryar'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 had thrash'd the corn
That ten day-lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbard 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 whifp'ring winds foon lull'd asleep.
Towered cities please 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 anon,
If Johnfon'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 verfe,
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,
Untwisting all the chains that tye
The hidden foul of harmony;
That Orpheus felf may heave his head
From golden flumber on a bed
Of heapt Elyfian flow'r, 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 can'st give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
|