Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks and rivers wide. Towers and battlements it sees Bosomed high in tufted trees, Where perhaps some beauty lies, The cynosure of neighboring eyes. Hard by, a cottage-chimney smokes, From betwixt two agèd oaks, Where Corydon and Thyrsis met, Are at their savory dinner set Of herbs, and other country messes, Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses:
And then in haste her bower, she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; Or, if the earlier season lead, To the tanned haycock in the mead. Sometimes, with secure delight, The upland hamlets will invite, When the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth, and many a maid Dancing in the chequered shade; And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday,
Till the livelong daylight fail; Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat, How Fairy Mab the junkets eat; She was pinched and pulled, said,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit, or arms, while both contend To win her grace, whom all com- mend.
There let Hymen oft appear In saffron robe, with taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With masque and antique pageantry, Such sights as youthful poets dream, On summer eves, by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, Such as the melting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed, and giddy cun
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear Such strains as would have won the
Of Pluto, to have quite set free His half-regained Eurydice.
These delights if thou canst give, Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
HENCE, vain deluding joys, The brood of folly, without father bred! How little you bestead,
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy shapes And add to these retired Leisure, That in trim gardens takes his pleas ure;
As the gay motes that people the But first and chiefest with thee bring,
To set her beauty's praise above The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended:
Yet thou art higher far descended; Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore To solitary Saturn bore;
His daughter she (in Saturn's reign Such mixture was not held a stain). Oft in glimmering bowers and glades He met her, and in secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove, While yet there was no fear of Jove. Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain, Flowing with majestic train, And sable stole of cypress lawn, Over thy decent shoulders drawn. Come, but keep thy wonted state, With even step and musing gait, And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes: There, held in holy passion still, Forget thyself to marble, till With a sad leaden downward cast, Thou fix them on the earth as fast; And join with thee calm peace and quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with Gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring Aye round about Jove's altar sing;
Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest, saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke,
Gently o'er the accustomed oak; Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chantress, oft the woods among,
I woo to hear thy even-song; And missing thee, I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering moon, Riding near her highest noon, Like one that had been led astray Through the heavens' wide pathless
And oft, as if her head she bowed, Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft on a plat of rising ground I hear the far-off curfew sound, Over some wide-watered shore, Swinging slow with sullen roar.
Or if the air will not permit, Some still, removèd place will fit, Where glowing embers through the
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom; Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth, Or the bellman's drowsy charm, To bless the doors from nightly harm. Or let my lamp at midnight hour Be seen on some high lonely tower, Where I may oft outwatch the Bear, With thrice-great Hermes, or un- sphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold What worlds, or what vast regions hold [sook The immortal mind, that hath for Her mansion in this fleshly nook; And of those demons that are found In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent With planet, or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later age, Ennobled hath the buskined stage. But, O sad virgin! that thy power Might raise Musæus from his bower, Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek, And made hell grant what love did seek;
Or call up him that left half told The story of Cambusean bold, Of Camball, and of Algarsife, And who had Canace to wife, That owned the virtuous ring and glass;
And of the wondrous horse of brass, On which the Tartar king did ride; And if aught else great bards beside In sage and solemn tunes have sung, Of tourneys and of trophies hung; Of forests and enchantments drear, Where more is meant than meets the
There in close covert by some brook, Where no profaner eye may look, Hide me from day's garish eye, While the bee with honeyed thigh, That at her flowery work doth sing, And the waters murmuring, With such consort as they keep, Entice the dewy-feathered sleep: And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in airy stream Of lively portraiture displayed, Softly on my eyelids laid: And as I wake, sweet music breathe Above, about, or underneath, Sent by some spirit to mortals good, Or the unseen genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high embowed roof, With antic pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. There let the pealing organ blow, To the full-voiced choir below, In service high, and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale And bring all heaven before mine
'Till civil-suited Morn appear,
And may at last my weary age
Not tricked and frounced as she was Find out the peaceful hermitage,
All meanly wrapt in the rude man- Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
Nature in awe to Him
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympa
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.
Only with speeches fair She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinful blame,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave,
ON HIS Blindness.
WHEN I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
The saintly veil of maiden white to To serve therewith my Maker, and
Fenced up the yerdant wall; each beauteous flower,
Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought Mosaic: under foot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay Broidered the ground, more colored than with stone
Of costliest emblem. Other creature here,
Beast, bird, insect, or worm, durst enter none:
Such was their awe of man. In shadier bower
More sacred and sequestered, though but feigned,
Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor nymph
Nor Faunus haunted. Here, in close
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