ODE ON THE SPRING. Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours, The untaught harmony of spring: Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader browner shade, Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech Beside some water's rushy brink Still is the toiling hand of Care; And float amid the liquid noon: To Contemplation's sober eye And they that creep, and they that fly, In Fortune's varying colours drest : Methinks I hear, in accents low, Poor moralist! and what art thou? Thy joys no glittering female meets, ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE. Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, And ye, that from the stately brow Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among His silver-winding way: Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields beloved in vain! Where once my careless childhood strayed, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow As waving fresh their gladsome wing, My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring. Say, father Thames, for thou hast seen To chase the rolling circle's speed, While some on earnest business bent Their murmuring labours ply 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint To sweeten liberty: Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry: Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy. Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed, And lively cheer, of vigour born; Alas! regardless of their doom No sense have they of ills to come, Yet see, how all around them wait And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah, show them where in ambush stand, To sieze their prey, the murderous band! Ah, tell them, they are men! These shall the fury Passions tear, And Shame that skulks behind; That inly gnaws the secret heart; And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart. Ambition this shall tempt to rise, And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' altered eye, That mocks the tear it forced to flow; And keen Remorse with blood defiled, And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe. Lo! in the vale of years beneath A griesly troop are seen, The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen: This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That every labouring sinew strains, Those in the deeper vitals rage: To each his sufferings: all are men, The tender for another's pain, The unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, HYMN TO ADVERSITY. Daughter of Jove, relentless power, With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. When first thy sire to send on earth What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe. |