ODE TO SIMPLICITY
For when thy folding-star arising shews
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp

O Thou, by nature taught
The fragrant Hours, the elves

To breathe her genuine thought, Who slept in flow'rs the day,

In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly

strong; And many a nymph who wreaths her

Who first, on mountains wild, brows with sedge,

In fancy, loveliest child, And sheds the fresh’ning dew, and, lovelier Thy babe, or pleasure's, nursed the powers still

of song! The pensive Pleasures sweet, Prepare thy shadowy car.

Thou, who, with hermit heart,

Disdain'st the wealth of art, Then lead, calm vot'ress, where some And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailsheety lake

ing pall; Cheers the lone heath, or some time- But com'st a decent maid, hallow'd pile

In Attic robe arrayed, Or upland fallows grey

O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I Reflect its last cool gleam.

call;

By all the honeyed store

On Hybla's thymy shore;
By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs

dear;
By her whose lovelorn woe,

In evening musings slow,
Soothed sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear:

I only seek to find thy temperate vale;

Where oft my reed might sound

To maids and shepherds round,
And all thy sons, O nature, learn my tale.

JOHN DYER

By old Cephisus deep,

GRONGAR HILL
Who spread his wavy sweep,
In warbled wanderings, round thy green Silent nymph, with curious eye,
retreat;

Who, the purple evening, lie
On whose enameled side,

On the mountain's lonely van, When holy freedom died,

Beyond the noise of busy man; No equal haunt allured thy future feet. Painting fair the form of things,

While the yellow linnet sings; O sister meek of truth,

Or the tuneful nightingale To my admiring youth,

Charms the forest with her tale ; Thy sober aid and native charms infuse! Come, with all thy various hues,

The flowers that sweetest breathe, Come, and aid thy sister muse;

Though beauty culled the wreath, Now, while Phæbus, riding high, Still ask thy hand to range their ordered Gives luster to the land and sky! hues.

Grongar Hill invites my song,

Draw the landscape bright and strong; While Rome could none esteem

Grongar, in whose mossy cells, But virtue's patriot theme,

Sweetly musing, Quiet dwells; You loved her hills, and led their laureat Grongar, in whose silent shade, band:

For the modest Muses made; But stayed to sing alone

So oft I have, the evening still, To one distinguished throne;

At the fountain of a rill, And turned the face, and fled her altered Sat upon a flowery bed, land.

With my hand beneath my head;

While strayed my eyes o'er Towy's flood, No more, in hall or bower,

Over mead, and over wood, The passions own thy power;

From house to house, from hill to hill, Love, only love, her forceless numbers Till contemplation had her fill.

About his checkered sides I wind, For thou hast left her shrine;

And leave his brooks and meads behid, Nor olive more, nor vine,

And groves and grottoes where I lay, Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene. And vistas shooting beams of day:

Wide and wider spreads the vale,
Though taste, though genius, bless As circles on a smooth canal:
To some divine excess,

The mountains round, unhappy fate
Faints the cold work till thou inspire the Sooner or later, of all height,
whole;

Withdraw their summits from the skies, What each, what all supply,

And lessen as the others rise:
May court, may charm, our eye; Still the prospect wider spreads,
Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting Adds a thousand woods and meads;
soul!

Still it widens, widens still,

And sinks the newly risen hill. Of these let others ask,

Now I gain the mountain's brow, To aid some mighty task,

What a landscape lies below!

mean:

No clouds, no vapours intervene,

Sometimes swift, sometimes slow, But the gay, the open scene,

Wave succeeding wave, they go Does the face of nature shew,

A various journey to the deep, In all the hues of heaven's bow;

Like human life, to endless sleep! And, swelling to embrace the light, Thus is nature's vesture wrought, Spreads around beneath the sight.

To instruct our wandering thought; Old castles on the cliffs arise,

Thus she dresses green and gay, Proudly towering in the skies !

To disperse our cares away. Rushing from the woods, the spires

Ever charming, ever new, Seem from hence ascending fires !

When will the landscape tire the view ! Half his beams Apollo sheds

The fountain's fall, the river's flow, On the yellow mountain heads!

The woody valleys, warm and low; Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,

The windy summit, wild and high,
And glitters on the broken rocks !

Roughly rushing on the sky!
Below me trees unnumbered rise, The pleasant seat, the ruined tower,
Beautiful in various dyes :

The naked rock, the shady bower;
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,

The town and village, dome and farm, The yellow beech, the sable yew,

Each give each a double charm. The slender fir, that taper grows,

As pearls upon an Æthiop's arm. The sturdy oak, with broad-spread boughs. See, on the mountain's southern side, And beyond the purple grove,

Where the prospect opens wide, Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love!

Where the evening gilds the tide, Gaudy as the opening dawn,

How close and small the hedges lie! Lies a long and level lawn,

What streaks of meadows cross the On which a dark hill, steep and high,

eye! Holds and charms the wandering eye! A step, methinks, may pass the stream, Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,

So little distant dangers seem;
His sides are clothed with waving wood, So we mistake the future's face,
And ancient towers crown his brow, Eyed through hope's deluding glass;
That cast an awful look below;

As yon summits soft and fair,
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps, Clad in colours of the air,
And with her arms from falling keeps : Which to those who journey near,
So both a safety from the wind

Barren, brown, and rough appear;
On mutual dependence find.

Still we tread the same coarse way, 'Tis now the raven's bleak abode;

The present's still a cloudy day. 'Tis now the apartment of the toad;

O may I with myself agree,
Ind there the fox securely feeds,

And never covet what I see!
Ind there the poisonous adder breeds, Content me with an humble shade,
Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds; My passions tamed, my wishes laid;
Vhile, ever and anon, there falls

For while our wishes wildly roll,
Hugh heaps of hoary mouldered walls. We banish quiet from the soul:
Yet time has seen, that lifts the low, 'Tis thus the busy beat the air,
Ind level lays the lofty brow,

And misers gather wealth and care. Has seen this broken pile complete,

Now, even now, my joys run high, Big with the vanity of state;

As on the mountain turf I lie; But transient is the smile of fate!

While the wanton zephyr sings, A little rule, a little sway,

And in the vale perfumes his wings; A sunbeam in a winter's day,

While the waters murmur deep, Is all the proud and mighy have

While the shepherd charms his sheep, Between the cradle and the grave.

While the birds unbounded fly, And see the rivers, how they run

And with music fill the sky, Through woods and meads, in shade and sun, Now, even now, my joys run high.