ILENT Nymph, with curious eye!
Who, the purple evening, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noife of bufy man;
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet fings;
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the foreft with her tale;
Come, with all thy various dues,
Come, and aid thy fifter Mufe;
Now, while Phoebus riding high,
Gives luftre to the land and sky!
Grongar Hill invites my fong,
Draw the landskip bright and strong;
Grongar, in whofe moffy cells,
Sweetly mufing, Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whofe filent fhade,
For the modeft Mufes made,
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,
Sate upon a flowery bed,
With my hand beneath my head ;
While ftray'd my eyes o'er Towy's. flood,
Over mead, and over wood,
From houfe to house, from hill to hill,
Till Contemplation had her fill.
About his chequer'd fides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves, and grottoes where I lay,
And viftoes shooting beams of day:
Wide and wider fpreads the vale;
As circles on a fmooth canal:
The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, of all height,
Withdraw their fummits from the skies,
And leffen as the others rife :
Still the profpect wider spreads,
Adds a thoufand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens ftill,
And finks the newly-rifen hill.
Now, I gain the mountain's brow,
What a landskip lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene ;
But the gay, the open scene,
Does the face of Nature fhow,
In all the hues of Heaven's bow!
And, fwelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the fight.
Old caftles on the cliffs arife,
Proudly towering in the skies!
Rushing from the woods, the fpires
Seem from hence afcending fires!
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads!
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks!
Below me trees unnumber'd rise,
Beautiful in various dyes :
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the fable
yew, The flender fir, that taper grows,
The sturdy oak with broad-fpread boughs. And beyond the purple grove,
Haunt of Phyllis, Queen of Love!
Gaudy as the opening dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,
On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wandering eye!
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,
His fides are cloath'd with waving wood,
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That caft an aweful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps ;
So both a safety from the wind
On mutual dependence find.
'Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
'Tis now th' apartment of the toad;
And there the fox fecurely feeds;
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Conceal'd in ruins, mofs, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there falls'
Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls.
Yet time has feen, that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,
Has feen this broken pile compleat,
Big with the vanity of state;
But tranfient is the fmile of Fate!
A little rule, a little fway,
A fun-beam in a winter's-day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.
And fee the rivers how they run,
Through woods and meads, in fhade and fun,
Sometimes fwift, fometimes flow,
Wave fucceeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life, to endless fleep!
Thus is Nature's vefture wrought,
To inftruct our wandering thought;
Thus fhe dreffes green and
gay,
To difperfe our cares away.
Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landskip tire the view!
The fountain's fall, the river's flow,
The woody vallies, warm and low;
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