Composed in a rustic Seat overlooking the Ruins of Bolton Priory, Yorkshire.
TIME, AN AUTUMNAL MORNING.
How bright the sun, how pure the air,
How wide the prospect, and how fair,
And gently breathes the silent morn,
And brightly gleams the dew-gem'd thorn;
The grey mists lingering on the floods,
Midway embrace the pendant woods,
Which rising from the vale, on high
Wave in the breeze, and mingle with the sky.
Yon mossy, grey, and ruin'd piles,
Of cloister'd arches, and of ailes,
Where superstition, once held sway,
Now sparkle in the sunny ray;
The swain no longer shuns the walls,
Of pow'rful monks, in mitred stalls,
No longer shuns the pile with dread,
But feeds his flock amid the harmless dead.
Majestic trees of various kinds,
Bow to the stream, and court the winds,
Wearing the livery of the year,
The green, the yellow, and the sear ;
The graceful ash, whose chèquer'd shade
Admits the sunbeam in the glade;
And silvery birch, whose drooping form
Sighs in the breeze, and trembles in the storm:
The stately elm for solemn grove,
For noontide heats, and haunts of love;
The aged monarch of the woods,
Who moves his empire to the floods;
The lofty pine of deepest hue,
The mouldering abbey's mournful yew;
And willows by the river side,
Kissing the ripling stream they bend to hide.
Yon fisher, as he onward treads
The pebbled shores, or daisied meads,
Watches the springing trout, and tries
His arts to win the speckled prize.
All day he tempts the scaly brood,
By shallow stream, or shady wood;
Nor deems his joyous labour done,
While gleams one ray of the departing sun.
Oh! for a magic hand, to trace
Each various beauty, and each grace,
With glowing tints of pow'rful charm,
As Poussin grand, as Lorraine warm;
Then should these scenes for ever wear
The mellow'd lustre of the year,
Nor Tempe's vale, nor Arno's stream,
Surpass the vision of my waking dream.
Scenes of delight for ever dear,
Whence springs this sadly, pleasing tear?
Whence comes the melancholy pow'r,
To chase the smile from this bright hour?-
From gratitude, the tear-drops start,
And holy reverence of the heart,
To Him whose hand outspread the plains,
Where love, and joy, and endless beauty reigns.
AH, why to my too feeling mind
Is this my native place so dear?
As if it had some chain to bind,
In lasting links, my being here?
I need not ask! 'twas this calm scene
Witness'd, ere yet, a stranger, I
Had mingled with tumultuous men,
My purest grief, my. purest joy.
For 'twas this spot, on my young cheek
That saw the first emotion rise,
That saw, its little woe to speak,
THE FIRST TEAR dim my infant eyes!
FIFTH ELEGY OF MILTON IMITATED.
OLD Time again renews his circling dance,
And wakens Nature from her yearly trance;
He calls the western gales; the gales obey,
And o'er the plains their breezy wings display.
Once more the fields renew their transient bloom,
And, gently thaw'd, their vernal vest resume.
Was it a dream? Or did a heaven-sent ray
Visit my soul, and let in more than day?—
It was no dream, the tuneful god returns,
My thoughts mount heavenward, and my fancy burns.
Returning Spring renews the mental soil,
And wakes her powers for some unusual toil.
Castalia's gifted streams I seem to hear!
Her cloud-cap'd summits in my dreams appear!
With holy themes I feel my bosom glow,
Prompted by heaven, spontaneous numbers flow;
The power appears, his laurels nod afar,
Imagination mounts his burning car.
Thro' vagrant clouds my disembodied flight
Visits the smile of day, the frown of ancient night.
Th' eternal mansions of the bards I see,
Her mystic wonders heaven displays to me:
Above, her pomp unfolds, her splendours glow,
And hell her stage of horrors spreads below.
What heaven-sent rapture swells my heaving breast?
What sacred fury thus invades my rest?
'Tis Spring, which gives my kindling fancy birth,
Glad Spring, whose nuptial zone adorns the earth:
She wakes the woodland choirs, the Muse's strain,
O may she never call the Muse in vain!—
Now midst her infant blooms, the vocal grove
Hears Philomel renew her strains of love.
Here, to Augusta's heedless crowds I sing.
Her lonely descant celebrates the Spring;
Season of life and joy, whose welcome reign
From every voice demands a tributary strain!
Now Sol remounts the wide ethereal road, And cold Boötes hails the coming God. Old Night her falling tyranny deplores, Her banner furls, and half disbands her powers. And ere Calisto wheels her tardy round, Thro' the wide circuit of the blue profound, Her frighted coursers meet, with pale dismay, The purple vaward of ascending day. Nor round the palace on th' Olympian steep The starry hosts their livelong vigils keep; The time is past for stratagem and fraud, No ambush'd giants threat the thund'ring god. WHEN, chac'd by light, the parting shadows flee. From yon high cliff, that overlooks the sea, Some early shepherd hails the Lord of day, As o'er the flood he points his level ray. "The wat'ry fair*, with all her boasted charms, "Not long detain'd you in her azure arms;"Or, haply when you touch'd th' Atlantic wave, "Deceiv'd thy flame, and sought her pearly cave!" GLAD Cynthia now resigns her cloudy car, And seeks the woodland range of sportive war; And, pleas'd her brother grants an easier task, Doffs her pale crescent, and nocturnal mask.
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