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And meretricious arts of dress,

To feign a joy, and hide distress:
Unmov'd when the rude tempest blows,
Without an opiate they repose;
And cover'd by your shield, defy

The whizzing shafis, that round them fly:
Nor meddling with the gods' affairs,
Concern themselves with distant cares;
But place their bliss in mental rest,
And feast upon the good possess'd.
Forc'd by soft violence of pray'r,
The blithsome goddess sooths my care;
I feel the deity inspire,

And thus she models my desire.

Two hundred pounds, half-yearly paid,
Annuity securely made,

A farm some twenty miles from town,
Small, tight, salubrious, and my own
Two maids, that never saw the town,
A serving-man, not quite a clown,
A boy to help to tread the mow,
And drive, while t'other holds the plough;
A chief, of temper form'd to please,
Fit to converse, and keep the keys;
And hetter to preserve the peace,
Commission'd by the name of niece;
With understandings of a size
To think their master very wise.
May Heaven (it's all I wi-h for) send.
One genial room to treat a friend,
Where de cent cupboard, little plate,
Display benevolence, not state,
And may my humble dwelling stand
Upon some chosen spot of land;

A pond before, full to the brim,

Where cows may cool, and geese may swim :

Behind, a green, like velvet neat,

Soft to the eye, and to the feet;
Where cd'rous plants in ev'ning fair
Breathe all around ambrosial air;

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From Eurus, foe to kitchen ground,
Fenc'd by a slope with bushes crown'd,
Fit dwelling for the feather'd throng,
Who pay their quit-rents with a song;
With op'ning views of hill and dale,
Which sense and fancy too regale,

Where the half-cirque, which vision bounds, -
Like amphitheatre surrounds:

And woods impervious to the breeze,

Thick phalanx of embodied trees,

From hills, through plains, in dusk array
Extended far, repel the day:

Here stillness, height, and solemn shade,
Invite, and contemplation aid':

Here nymphs from hollow caks relate
The dark decrees and will of fate,
And dreams beneath the spreading beech,
Inspire and docile fancy teach;
While soft as breezy breath of wind,
Impulses rustle through the mind :
Here Dryads, scorning Phoebus' ray,..
While Pan melodious pipes away,
I measur'd motions frisk about,
Till old Silenus put them out.

There see the clover, pea, and bean, -
Vie in variety of green;

Fresh pastures speckled o'er with sheep,.
Brown fields their fallow sabbaths keep,
Plump Ceres golden tresses wear,

And poppy top-knots deck her hair,

And silver streams through meadows stray,

And Naïads on the margin play,

And lesser nymphs on side of hills

From plaything urns pour down the rills.

Thus shelter'd, free from care and strife, May I enjoy a calm through life; See faction, safe in low degree, As men on land see storms at sea, And laugh at miserable elves, Not kind, so much as to themselves,

Curs'd with such souls of base alley,
As can possess, but not enjoy ;
Debarr'd the pleasure to impart
By av'rice, sphincter of the heart,
Who wealth, hard earn'd by guilty cares,
Bequeath, untouch'd, to thankless heirs.
May I, with look ungloom'd by guile,
And wearing Virtue's liv'ry, smile,
Prone the distressed to relieve,
And little trespasses forgive,
With income not in Fortune's pow'r,
And skill to make a busy hour,
With trips to town, life to amuse,
To purchase books, and hear the news,
To see old friends, brush off the clown,
And quicken taste at coming down.
Unhurt by sickness' blasting rage,
And slowly mellowing into age;
When Fate extends its gathering gripe,
Fall off like fruit grown fully ripe ;
Quit a worn being without pain,
In hope to blossom soon again.

CHAPTER VII.

GRONGAR HILL.

SILENT nymph! with curious eye,
Who, the purple ev'ning, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man,
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow lianet sings;
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale;
Come with all thy various hues,
Come and aid thy sister Muse:

GREEN.

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Now, while Phoebus riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky,
Grongar Hill invites my song,

Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells
Sweetly musing Quiet dwells:
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So oft I have, the ev'ning still,-
At the fountain of a rill,
Sat upon a flow'ry-bed,

With hand beneath my head;

my

While stray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood,
Over mead, and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill,
Till Contemplation had her fill.

About his chequer'd sides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves and grottos, where I lay,
And vistas shooting. beams of day;
Wide and wider spreads the vale,
As circles on a smooth canal;
The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, of all height,
Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise:

Still the prospect wider spreads,

Adds a thousand woods and meads,.
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly-risen hill.

Now, I gain the mountain's brow;

What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapours, intervene,
But the gay, the open scene,
Does the face of Nature show,
In all the hues of Heaven's bow!
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.
Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly tow'ring in the skies;

Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires!
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads,
Gills the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks.
Below me trees unnumber'd rise,
Beautiful in various dyes:

The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir, that taper grows,
The sturdy oak, with broad-spread boughs,
And, beyond the purple grove,
Haunt of Phillis, queen of love!
Gaudy as the op'ning dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wand'ring eye;
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,
His sides are cloth'd with waving wood,
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps ;
So both a safety from the wind
In mutual dependence find.

'Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
"Tis now th' apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds;
And there the pois'nous adder breeds,
Conceal'd in rains, moss, and weeds:
While, ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls.
Yel time has seen, that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,
Has seen this broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state:
But transient is the smile of fate!
A little rule, a little sway,
A sun-beam in a winter's day,

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