From her firft patriots and her heroes sprung,
Thyfond im ploring country turns her eye;
In thee, with all a mother's triumph, sees
Her every virtue, every grace combin❜d,
Her genius, wisdom, her engaging turn,
Her pride of honour, and her courage try'd,
Calm, and intrepid, in the very throat
Of fulphurous war, on Teniers' dreadful field.
Nor less the palm of peace inwreathes thy brow:
For, powerful as thy fword, from thy rich tongue
Perfuafion flows, and wins the high debate;
While mix'd in thee combine the charm of youth, 940
The force of manhood, and the depth of age.
Thee, Forbes, too, whom every worth attends,
As truth fincere, as weeping friendship kind,
Thee, truly generous, and in filence great,
Thy country feels through her reviving arts,
Plann'd by thy wisdom, by thy foul inform❜d;
And feldom has fhe known a friend like thee.
But fee the fading many-colour'd woods,
Shade deepening over fhade, the country round
Imbrown; à crowded umbrage, dusk, and dun, 950
Of every hue, from wan-declining green
To footy dark. These now the lonesome Muse,
Low-whispering, lead into their leaf-ftrown walks,
And give the season in its latest view. ·
Meantime, light-fhadowing all, a fober calm
Fleeces unbounded æther; whofe leaft wave
Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn
The gentle current: 'while illumin'd wide,
The dewy-fkirted clouds imbibe the fun,
And through their lucid veil his foften'd force
Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time,
For those whom wisdom and whom Nature charm,
To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd,
And foar above this little scene of things;
To tread low-thoughted vice beneath their feet;
To foothe the throbbing paffions into peace;
And woo lone Quiet in her filent walks.
Thus folitary, and in penfive guife,
Oft let me wander o'er the ruffet mead,
And through the fadden'd grove, where fcarce is heard
One dying ftrain, to chear the woodman's toil.
Haply fome widow'd songster pours his plaint,
Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copfe.
While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks,
And each wild throat, whofe artless strains fo late 975
Swell'd all the mufic of the fwarming fhades,
Robb'd of their tuneful fouls, now shivering fit
On the dead tree, a full defpondent flock;
With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes,
And nought fave chattering discord in their note. 980
O, let not, aim'd from fome inhuman eye,
The gun the music of the coming year
Deftroy; and harmless, unfufpecting harm,
Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey,
In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground!
The pale defcending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf
Inceffant ruftles from the mournful grove;
Oft ftartling fuch as, ftudious, walk below,
And flowly circles through the waving air.
But fhould a quicker breeze amid the boughs
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams;
Till choak'd, and matted with the dreary fhower,
The foreft-walks, at every rifing gale,
Roll wide the wither'd waste, and whistle bleak. 995
Fled is the blafted verdure of the fields;
And, fhrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their funny robes refign. Ev'n what remain'd
Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree;
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around 1000
The defolated prospect thrills the foul.
He comes! he comes! in every breeze the Power
Of Philofophic Melancholy comes!
His near approach the fudden-starting tear,
The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air,
The foften'd feature, and the beating heart,
Pierc'd deep with many a virtuous pang, declare.
O'er all the foul his facred influence breathes!
Inflames imagination; through the breast
Infufes every tenderness; and far
Beyond dim earth exalts the fwelling thought.
Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, fuch
As never mingled with the vulgar dream,
Crowd faft into the Mind's creative eye.
As faft the correfpondent paffions rife,
As varied, and as high: Devotion rais'd
To rapture, and divine aftonishment;
The love of nature unconfin'd, and, chief,
Of human race; the large ambitious wifh,
To make them bleft; the figh for fuffering worth 1020
Loft in obfcurity; the noble fcorn
Of tyrant-pride; the fearless great resolve;
The wonder which the dying patriot draws,
Infpiring glory through remotest time;
Th' awaken'd throb for virtue, and for fame;
The sympathies of love, and friendship dear;
With all the focial offspring of the heart.
Oh, bear me to vaft embowering fhades,
To twilight groves, and visionary vales;
To weeping grottoes, and prophetic glooms;
Where angel forms athwart the folemn dufk
Tremendous sweep, or feem to sweep along;
And voices more than human, through the void
Deep-founding, seize th' enthusiastic ear!
Or is this gloom too much? Then lead, ye powers, That o'er the garden and the rural seat
Prefide, which fhining through the chearful land
In countless numbers blest Britannia fees ;
O, lead me to the wide-extended walks,
The fair majestic paradife of Stowe * !
Not Perfian Cyrus on Ionia's fhore
E'er faw fuch fylvan fcenes; fuch various art
By genius fir'd, fuch ardent genius tam'd
By cool judicious art; that, in the ftrife,
All-beauteous Nature fears to be outdone.
And there, O Pitt, thy country's early boast,
*The feat of the Lord Viscount Cobham.
There let me fit beneath the shelter'd slopes,
Or in that * Temple where, in future times,
Thou well fhalt merit a distinguish'd name;
And, with thy converse bleft, catch the last smiles 1050
Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods.
While there with thee th' inchanted round I walk,
The regulated wild, gay Fancy then
Will tread in thought the groves of Attic Land;
Will from thy ftandard taste refine her own,
Correct her pencil to the purest truth
Of Nature, or, the unimpaffion'd shades
Forfaking, raise it to the human mind.
Or if hereafter fhe, with jufter hand,
Shall draw the tragic scene, inftruct her thou,
To mark the varied movements of the heart,
What every decent character requires,
And every paffion speaks: O, through her strain
Breathe thy pathetic eloquence! that moulds
Th' attentive fenate, charms, perfuades, exalts, 1065
Of honeft zeal th' indignant lightning throws,
And shakes corruption on her venal throne.
While thus we talk, and through Elysian Vales
Delighted rove, perhaps a figh escapes:
What pity, Cobham, thou thy verdant files
Of order'd trees fhouldft here inglorious range,
Inftead of fquadrons flaming o'er the field,
And long embattled hofts! when the proud foe,
The faithlefs vain disturber of mankind,
*The temple of Virtue in Stowe-Gardens.
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