If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
…Like thy own solemn springs,
…Thy springs, and dying gales,
O nymph reserv’d, while now the bright-hair’d sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
…With brede ethereal wove,
…O’er hang his wavy bed:
Now air is hush’d, save where the weak-ey’d bat,
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
…Or where the beetle winds
…His small but sullen horn,
As oft he rises ‘midst the twilight path,
Against the Pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
…Now teach me, maid compos’d,
…To breathe some soften’d strain,
Whose numbers, stealing thro’ my darkning vale
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
…As, musing slow, I hail
…Thy genial lov’d return!
For when thy folding-star arising shews
His play circlet, at his warning lamp
…The fragrant Hours, and elves
…Who slept in flowers the day,
And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the fresh’ning dew, and lovelier still,
…The pensive Pleasures sweet
…Prepare thy shadowy car.
Then lead, calm vot’ress, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow’d pile,
…Or upland fallows grey
…Reflect its last cool gleam.
But when chill blust’ring winds, or driving rain,
Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut
…That from the mountain’s side,
…Views wilds, and swelling floods,
And hamlets brown, and dim-discover’d spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o’er all
…Thy dewy fingers draw
…The gradual dusky veil.
While Spring shall pour his show’rs, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
…While Summer loves to sport,
…Beneath thy ling’ring light;
While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter yelling thro’ the troublous air,
…Affrights thy shrinking train,
…And rudely rends thy robes;
So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lip’d Health
…Thy gentlest influence own,
…And hymn thy fav’rite name!
Read Full Post »
The Bard on the Hill 