O hide me in romantic bowers!
Or lead my step to ruin’d towers !
Where gleaming thro' the chinky door
The pale ray gilds the moulder'd floor:
While beneath the hallowed pile
Deep in the desert shrieking ile
Rapt Contemplation stalks along,
And hears the slow clock’s pealing tongue;
Or mid' the dun discoloured gloom,
Sits on some Heroe's peaceful tomb,
Throws Life's gay glittering robe aside,
And tramples on the neck of Pride.
Oft shelter'd by the rambling sprays,
Lead o'er the forest's winding maze;
Where through the mantling boughs, afar
Glimmers the filver-streaming star;
And, shower'd from every rustling blade
The loose Light floats along the shade :
So hovering o’er the human scene;
Gay Pleasure sports with brow serene ;'
By Fancy beam'd, the glancing ray
Shoots, flutters, gleams, and fleets away:
Unsettled, dubious, restless, blind,
Floats all the busy bustling mind;
While Memory's unstain'd leaves retain
No trace from all th’ideal train.
• H2
· But see the landskip opening fair
Invites to breathe the purer air !
O when the cowslip-scented gale
Shakes the light dew-drop o'er the dale,
When on her amber-dropping bed
Loose Ease reclines her downy head;
How blest! by fairy-Haunted stream
To melt in wild ecstatic dream!
Die to the pictured wish, or hear
(Breathed soft on Fancy's trembling ear)
Such lays, by angel-harps refined,
As half unchain the fluttering mind,
When on Life's edge it eyes the shore,
And all its pinions stretch to soar.
Lo, where the sun's broad orb withdrawn
Skirts with pale gold the dusky lawn!
While led by every gentler power,
Steals the slow, folemn, musing hour,
Now from the green hill's purple brow :
Let me mark the scene below;
Where feebly-glancing thro' the gloom
Yon myrtle shades the filent tomb:
Not far, beneath the evening beam
The dark Lake rolls his ązure stream,
Whose breast the swan’s white plumes divide,
Slow-failing o'er the floating tidę.
Groves,
Groves, meads, and spires, and forests bare
Shoot glimmering thro' the misty air ;
Dim as the vision-pictured bower
That gilds the saint's expiring hour,
When rapt to ecstasy, his eye
Looks thro' the blue etherial sky.
All heav'n unfolding to his fight!
Gay forms that swim in floods of light!
The sun-pavid floor, the balmy clime,
The ruby-beaming dome sublime,
The towers in glittering pomp display'd;-
The bright scene hovers o'er his bed.
He starts :—but from his eager gaze
Black clouds obscure the less’ning rays ;
On Memory still the scene is wrought,
And lives in Fancy's featur'd thought.
On the airy mount reclin'd
What wishes foothe the musing mind !
How soft the velvet lap of Spring!
How sweet the Zephir’s violet wing !
Goddess of the plaintive song,
That leads the melting heart along;
O bid thy voice of genial power
Reach Contemplation's lonely bower ;
And call the Sage with tranced fight
To climb the mountain's steepy height;
To wing the kindling wish, or spread
O'er Thought's pale cheek enlivening red ;
Come hoary Power with serious eye,
Whose thought explores yon distant sky;
Now when the busy world is still,
Nor Passion tempts the wavering will,
When sweeter hopes each power controul,
And Quiet whispers to the soul,
Now sweep from Life th' illusive train
That dance in Folly’s dizzy brain :
Be Reason's simple draught pourtraye),
Where blends alternate light and shade ;
Bid dimpled Mirth, with thought belied,
Sport on the bubble’s glittering fide;'
Bid Hope pursue the diftant boon,
And Frenzy watch the fading moon;
Paint Superstition's starting eye,
And Wit that leers with gesture ily;
Let Censure whet her venomed dart,
And green-eyed Envy gnaw the heart;
Let Pleasure lie on flowers reclin'd,
While Anguish aims her shaft behind.
Hail, Sire sublime, whose hallow'd cave
Howls to the hoarse deep's dashing wave;
Thee Solitude to Phæbus bore,
Far on the lone deserted shore,
Where Orellano's rushing tide
Roars on the rock's projected side.
Hence bursting o'er thy ripened mind,
Beams all the Father's thought refined:
Hence oft in filent vales unseen,
Thy footsteps print the fairy green ;
Or thy soul melts to strains of woe,
That from the willow's quivering bough
Sweet warbling breathe;--the Zephirs round
O'er Dee's smooth current waft the found,
When soft on bending osiers laid
The broad sun trembling thro’ the bed;
All-wild thy heav'n-rapt Fancy strays,
Led thro' the soul-diffolving maze,
Till Slumber downy-pinioned, near
Plants her strong fetlocks on thy ear;
The soul unfetter'd bursts away,
And balks enlarged in beamy day.
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