Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget,
The gentle Spenser, Fancy's pleasing son;
Who, like a copious river pour'd his song
O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground:
Nor thee, his ancient master, laughing sage,
Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse,
Well moraliz'd, shines thro' the Gothic cloud
Of time and language o'er thy genius thrown.
May my song soften, as thy Daughters, I,
Britannia, hail; for beauty is their own,
The feeling heart, simplicity of life,

And elegance and taste: the faultless form,
Shap'd by the hand of harmony; the cheek,
Where the live crimson, thro' the native white,
Soft-shooting o'er the face diffuses bloom,
And every nameless grace; the parted lip,
Like the red rose-bud moist with morning dew,
Breathing delight; and under-flowing jet,
Or sunny ringlets, or of circling brown,

The neck slight-shaded, and the swelling breast;
The look resistless, piercing to the soul,
And by the soul inform'd, when drest in love
She sits high-smiling in the conscious eye.

Island of bliss! amid the subject seas
That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up,
At once the wonder, terror, and delight,
Of distant nations; whose remotest shores
Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm;
Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults
Baffling, as thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave.
O thou! by whose almighty nod the scale
Of empire rises, or alternate falls,

Send forth the saving Virtues round the land,'
In bright patrol: white Peace, and social Love;
The tender-looking Charity, intent

On gentle deeds and shedding tears thro' smiles; Undaunted Truth, and Dignity of mind;

Courage compos'd, and keen: sound Temperance, Healthful in heart and look; clear Chastity,

With blushes reddening as she moves along,
Disorder'd at the deep regard she draws;
Rough Industry; Activity untir'd,
With copious life inform'd, and all awake:
While in the radiant front, superior shines
That first paternal virtue, Public Zeal;
Who throws o'er all an equal wide survey,
And, ever musing on the common weal,
Still labours glorious with some great design.

Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees,
Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds
Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train,
In all their pomp attend his setting throne.
Air, earth, and ocean smile immense. And now,
As if his weary chariot sought the bowers
Of Amphitritè, and her tending nymphs,
(So Grecian fable sung) he dips his orb;
Now half-immers'd; and now a golden curve
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.
For ever running an enchaunted round,
Passes the day, deceitful, vain, and void;
As fleets the vision o'er the formful brain,
This moment hurrying wild the impassion'd soul,
The next in nothing lost. 'Tis so to him,
The dreamer of this earth, an idle blank:
A sight of horror to the cruel wretch,
Who all day long in sordid pleasure roll'd,
Himself an useless load, has squander'd vile,
Upon his scoundrel train, what might have cheer'd
A drooping family of modest worth,

But to the generous still-improving mind,

That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy,

Diffusing kind beneficience around,

Boastless, as now descends the silent dew;
To him the long review of order'd life

Is inward rapture, only to be felt.

Confess'd from yonder slow-extinguish'd clouds, All ether softening, sober Evening takes

Her wonted station in the middle air;

A thousand shadows at her beck. First this

She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye
Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still,
In circle following circle, gathers round,
To close the face of things. A fresher gale
Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream,
Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn;
While the quail clamours for his running mate.
Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,
A whitening shower of vegetable down
Amusive floats. The kind impartial care
Of nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed
Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year,
From field to field the feathered seeds she wings.
His folded flock secure, the shepherd home
Hies, merry-hearted; and by turns relieves
The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail ;
The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart,
Unknowing what the joy-mixt anguish means,
Sincerely loves, by that best language shewn
Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds.
Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height,
And valley sunk, and unfrequented: where
At fall of eve the fairy people throng,
In various game, and revelry, to pass
The summer-night, as village-stories tell.
But far about they wander from the grave
Of him, whom his ungentle fortune urg'd
Against his own sad breast to lift the hand
Of impious violence. The lonely tower
Is also shun'd, whose mournful chambers hold,
So night struck Fancy dreams, the yelling ghost.
Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge,
The glow-worm lights his gem; and, thro' the dark,
A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields
The world to Night; not in her winter robe
Of massy Stygian woof, but loose array'd
In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray,
Glanc'd from the imperfect surfaces of things,
Flings half an image on the straining eye;
While waving woods, and villages, and streams,

And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retain'd
The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,
Uncertain, if beheld. Sudden to heaven
Thence weary vision turns; where, leading soft
The silent hours of love, with purest ray
Sweet Venus shines; and from her genial rise,
When day-light sickens till it springs afresh,
Unrivall'd reigns, the fairest lamp of night.

As thus the effulgence tremulous I drink,
With cherish'd gaze, the lambent lightnings shoot
Across the sky; or horizontal dart

In wondrous shapes; by fearful murmuring crowds
Portentous deem'd. Amid the radiant orbs,
That more than deck, that animate the sky,
The life-infusing suns of other worlds;
Lo! from the dread immensity of space
Returning, with accelerated course,

The rushing comet to the sun descends;
And as he sinks below the shading earth,
With awful train projected o'er the heavens,
The guilty nations tremble. But, above
Those superstitious horrors that enslave
The fond sequacious herd, to mystic faith
And blind amazement prone, the enlightened few,
Whose god-like minds philosophy exalts,
The glorious stranger hail. They feel a joy
Divinely great; they in their powers exult,

That wondrous force of thought, which mounting spurns
This dusky spot, and measures all the sky;
While, from his far excursion thro' the wilds
Of barren ether, faithful to his time,
They see the blazing wonder rise anew,
In seeming terror clad, but kindly bent
To work the will of all-sustaining Love:
From his huge vapoury train perhaps to shake
Reviving moisture on the numerous orbs,
Thro' which his long ellipsis winds; perhaps
To lend new fuel to declining suns,

To light up worlds, and feed the eternal fire.

With thee, serene Philosophy, with thee,
And thy bright garland, let me crown my song!
Effusive source of evidence, and truth!

A lustre shedding o'er the ennobled mind,
Stronger than summer noon; and pure as that,
Whose mild vibrations soothe the parted soul,
New to the dawning of celestial day.

Hence thro' her nourish'd powers, enlarg'd by thee,
She springs aloft, with elevated pride,

Above the tangling mass of low desires,

That bind the fluttering crowd; and, angel-wing'd,
The heights of science and of virtue gains,
Where all is calm and clear: with Nature round,
Or in the starry regions, or the abyss,

To Reason's and to Fancy's eye display'd:
The First up-tracing, from the dreary void,
The chain of causes and effects to Him,
The world-producing Essence, who alone
Possesses being; while the Last receives
The whole magnificence of heaven and earth,
And every beauty delicate or bold,
Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense,
Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.

Tutor'd by thee, hence Poetry exalts
Her voice to ages; and informs the page
With music, image, sentiment, and thought,
Never to die! the treasure of mankind!
Their highest honour, and their truest joy!

Without thee, what were unenlightened Man?
A savage roaming thro' the woods and wilds,
In quest of prey; and with the unfashioned fur
Rough clad; devoid of every finer art,
And elegance of life. Nor happiness
Domestic, mix'd of tenderness and care,
Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss,
Nor guardian law were his; nor various skill
To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool
Mechanic; nor the heaven-conducted prow
Of navigation bold, that fearless braves
The burning line, or dares the wint'ry pole;