Thine still remain through all the storms of fate. Though not for me, 't was Heaven's divine command To roll in acres of paternal land, Yet still my lot is bless'd, while I enjoy Thine opening beauties with a lover's eye.

Happy is he, who, though the cup of bliss Has ever shunn'd him when he thought to kiss, Who, still in abject poverty or pain, Can count with pleasure what small joys remain: Though were his sight convey'd from zone to zone, He would not find one spot of ground his own, Yet as he looks around, he cries with glee, These bounding prospects all were made for me: For me yon waving fields their burden bear, For me yon labourer guides the shining share, While happy I in idle ease recline, And mark the glorious visions as they shine. This is the charm, by sages often told, Converting all it touches into gold. Content can soothe where'er by fortune placed, Can rear a garden in the desert waste.

How lovely, from this hill's superior height, Spreads the wide view before my straining sight! O'er many a varied mile of lengthening ground, E'en to the blue-ridged hill's remotest bound, My ken is borne; while o'er my head serene The silver moon illumes the misty scene: Now shining clear, now darkening in the glade, In all the soft varieties of shade.

Behind me, lo! the peaceful hamlet lies, The drowsy god has seal'd the cotter's eyes. No more, where late the social faggot blazed, The vacant peal resounds, by little raised, But locked in silence, o'er Arion's1 star The slumbering Night rolls on her velvet car: The church bell tolls, deep sounding down the glade, The solemn hour for walking spectres made; The simple ploughboy, wakening with the sound, Listens aghast, and turns him startled round, Then stops his ears, and strives to close his eyes, Lest at the sound some grisly ghost should rise. Now ceased the long, the monitory toll, Returning silence stagnates in the soul; Save when, disturbed by dreams, with wild affright, The deep mouth'd mastiff bays the troubled night: Or where the village alehouse crowns the vale, The creaking signpost whistles to the gale. A little onward let me bend my way, Where the moss'd seat invites the traveller's stay. That spot, oh! yet it is the very same; That hawthorn gives it shade, and gave it name: There yet the primrose opes its earliest bloom, There yet the violet sheds its first perfume, And in the branch that rears above the rest The robin unmolested builds its nest. 'T was here, when hope, presiding o'er my breast, In vivid colours every prospect dress'd: 'T was here, reclining, I indulged her dreams, And lost the hour in visionary schemes. Here, as I press once more the ancient 

 Prev. P 37/141 next