With throbbing breast, and faded cheek,
Her promis'd bridegroom's urn to seek;
Or to some abbey's mould'ring tow'rs,
Where to avoid cold winter's show'rs,
The naked beggar shiv'ring lies,
Whilst whistling tempests round her rise,
And trembles lest the tott'ring wall
Should on her sleeping infants fall.
Now let us louder strike the lyre,
For my heart glows with martial fire ;-
I feel, I feel, with sudden heat,
My big tumultuous bosom beat;.
The trumpet's clangours pierce mine ear,
A thousand widows' shrieks I hear;,
"Give me another horse!" I cry,
Lo! the base Gallic squadrons fly;
Whence is this rage?What spirit, say,›
To battle hurries me away?
'Tis Fancy, in her fiery car,
Transports me to the thickest war,
There whirls me o'er the hills of slain,
Where tumult and destruction reign;
Where, mad with pain, the wounded steed
Tramples the dying and the dead:
Where giant Terror stalks around,
With sullen joy surveys the ground,
And, pointing to th' ensanguin'd field,
Shakes his dreadful Gorgon shield!
O guide me from this horrid scene
To high-arch'd walks and alleys green,
Which lovely Laura seeks, to shun
The fervours of the mid-day sun;
The pangs of absence, O remove,
For thou canst place me near my love,
Canst fold in visionary bliss,
And let me think I steal a kiss.
When young-ey'd Spring profusely throws From her green lap the pink and rose; When the soft turtle of the dale
To Summer tells her tender tale,
When Autumn cooling caverns geeks,'
And stains with wine his jolly cheeks,
When Winter, like poor pilgrim old,
Shakes his silver beard with cold,
At ev'ry season let my ear
Thy solemn whispers, Fancy, hear.
O warm, enthusiastic maid,
Without thy pow'rful, vital aid,
That breathes an energy divine,
That gives a soul to ev'ry line;
Ne'er may I strive with lips profane
To utter an unhallow'd strain,
Nor dare to touch the sacred string,
Save when with smiles thou bid'st me sing.
O hear our prayer, O hither come
From thy lamented Shakspeare's tomb,
On which thou lov'st to sit at eve,
Musing o'er thy darling's grave;
of numbers, once again
Animate some chosen swain,
Who, fill'd with unexhausted fire,
May boldly strike the sounding lyre,
May rise above the rhyming throng,
And with some new unequall'd song
O'er all our list'ning passions reign,
O'erwhelm our souls with joy and pain;
With terror shake, with pity move,
Rouse with revenge, or melt with love.
O deign t'attend his evening walk,
With him in groves and grottos ta'k:
Teach him to scorn with frigid art
Feebly to touch th' unraptur'd heart;
Like lightning let his mighty verse
The bosom's inmost foldings pierce:
With native beauties win applause,
Beyond cold critics' studied laws:
O let each Muse's fame increase,
O bid Britannia rival Greece!
HENCE, loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus, and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,
'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy,
Find out some uncouth cell,.
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night raven sings;
There under ebon-shades, and low-brow'd rocks,
As ragged as thy locks, -
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In Heav'n yclep'd Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two sister Graces more
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sages sing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a-maying,
There on beds of vi'lets blue,
And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee,
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides,
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watch-tow'r in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweetbriar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before:
Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
Sometime walking not unseen
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where th' great sun begins his state,
Rob'd in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman near at haud
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk-maid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his sithe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landscape round it measures,
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains on whose barren breast,
The labouring clouds do often rest ;
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide:
Towers and battlements it sees,
Besom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighb'ring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savoury dinner set
Of herbs and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;.
Or if the earlier seasons lead,
To the tann'd hay-cock 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 chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holyday,
Till the live-long day-light fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets ate;
She was pinch'd, and pull'd, she said,
And he, by friar's lantern led,
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail had thrash'd the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whisp'ring winds soon lull'd asleep.
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