O Nymph reserv'd, while now the bright-hair'd sun O'erhang his wavy bed: Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd bat His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises midst the twilight path, To breathe some soften'd strain, Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale, For when thy folding-star arising shows And many a nymph who wreaths her brows with sedge, The pensive Pleasures sweet Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene; Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires; While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; Affrights thy shrinking train, So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, And love thy favourite name! DIRGE IN CYMBELINE, SUNG BY GUIDERIUS AND ARVIRAGUS Over FIDELE, SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD. To fair Fidele's grassy tomb Soft maids and village hinds shall bring No wailing ghost shall dare appear And melting virgins own their love. No wither'd witch shall here be seen, The red-breast oft, at evening hours, When howling winds, and beating rain, The tender thought on thee shall dwell: Each lonely scene shall thee restore; ODE ON THE DEATH OF MR. THOMSON. The scene of the following stanzas is supposed to lie on the Thames, near Richmond. IN yonder grave a Druid lies, Where slowly winds the stealing wave! In yon deep bed of whispering reeds The maids and youths shall linger here; To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell. Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore, When Thames in summer wreaths is drest; And oft suspend the dashing oar, To bid his gentle spirit rest! And, oft as ease and health retire The friend shall view yon whitening spire, But thou, who own'st that earthly bed, That mourn beneath the gliding sail! Yet lives there one whose heedless eye But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide And see, the fairy vallies fade; Dun Night has veil'd the solemn view! The genial meads, assign'd to bless Long, long thy stone and pointed clay FROM AN ODE ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE THESE, too, thou 'lt sing! for well thy magic muse He glows to draw you downward to your death, What though far off, from some dark dell espied And frequent round him rolls his sullen eyes, Ah, luckless swain, o'er all unbless'd, indeed! Whom late bewilder'd in the dank, dark, fen, Meantime the watery surge shall round him rise, For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait, For him in vain at to-fall of the day, His babes shall linger at th' unclosing gate! A fiery meteor, called by various names, such as Will with the Wisp. Jack with the Lantern, &c. It hovers in the air over marshy and fenny places. Her travell'd limbs in broken slumbers steep! Shall fondly seem to press her shuddering cheek, At dawn or dusk, industrious as before; Drown'd by the Kelpie's* wrath, nor e'er shall aid thee more!" Unbounded is thy range; with varied skill Thy muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle, To that hoar pilet which still its ruins shows; n whose small vaults a pigmy-folk is found, Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows, And culls then, wondering, from the hallow'd ground! Or thither, where beneath the showery west, The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid; Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest, No slaves revere them, and no wars invade : The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold, But, oh! o'er all, forget not Kilda's race, On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting tides, Fair Nature's daughter, Virtue, yet abides. Go! just, as they, their blameless manners trace! Then to my ear transmit some gentle song, Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain, Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along, And all their prospect but the wintry main. With sparing temperance, at the needful time, They drain the scented spring: or, hunger-press'd, Along th' Atlantic rock, undreading climb, And of its eggs despoil the solan's nest. *The water fiend. One of the Hebrides is called the Isle of Pigmies; it is reported, that several miniature bones of the human species have been dug up in the ruins of a chapel there. Icolmkill, one of the Hebrides, where near sixty of the ancient Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian kings are interred. An aquatic bird like a goose, on the eggs of which the inhabitants of St. Kilda, another of the Hebrides, chiefly subsist. |