When the ploughman leaves the task of day,And, trudging homeward, whistles on the way;When the big-uddered cows with patience stand,Waiting the strokings of the damsel's hand;No warbling cheers the woods; the feathered choir,To court kind slumbers, to their sprays retire;When no rude gale disturbs the sleeping trees,Nor aspen leaves confess the gentlest breeze;Engaged in thought, to Neptune's bounds I stray,To take my farewell of the parting day:Far in the deep the sun his glory hides,A streak of gold the sea and sky divides;The purple clouds their amber linings show,And edged with flame rolls every wave below;Here pensive I behold the fading light,And o'er the distant billows lose my sight.
I rue the day, a rueful day I trow,The woeful day, a day indeed of woe!When Lubberkin to town his cattle drove:A maiden fine bedight he happed to love;The maiden fine bedight his love retains,And for the village he forsakes the plains.Return, my Lubberkin! these ditties hear!Spells will I try, and spells shall ease my care.With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground,And turn me thrice around, around, around.
* * * * *
Last May Day fair I searched to find a snailThat might my secret lover's name reveal.Upon a gooseberry-bush a snail I found,For always snails near sweetest fruit abound.I seized the vermin, home I quickly sped,And on the hearth the milk-white embers spread:Slow crawled the snail, and, if I right can spell,In the soft ashes marked a curious L.Oh, may this wondrous omen lucky prove!For L is found in 'Lubberkin' and 'Love.'With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground,And turn me thrice around, around, around.
* * * * *
This lady-fly I take from off the grass,Whose spotted back might scarlet red surpass:'Fly, lady-bird, north, south, or east, or west!Fly where the man is found that I love best!'He leaves my hand: see, to the west he's flown,To call my true-love from the faithless town.With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground,And turn me thrice around, around, around.
This mellow pippin, which I pare around,My shepherd's name shall flourish on the ground:I fling th' unbroken paring o'er my head—Upon the grass a perfect L is read.Yet on my heart a fairer L is seenThan what the paring marks upon the green.With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground,And turn me thrice around, around, around.
This pippin shall another trial make.See, from the core two kernels brown I take:This on my cheek for Lubberkin is worn,And Boobyclod on t' other side is borne;But Boobyclod soon drops upon the ground(A certain token that his love's unsound),While Lubberkin sticks firmly to the last—Oh, were his lips to mine but joined so fast!With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground,And turn me thrice around, around, around.
As Lubberkin once slept beneath a tree,I twitched his dangling garter from his knee;He wist not when the hempen string I drew.Now mine I quickly doff of inkle blue;Together fast I tie the garters twain,And while I knit the knot repeat this strain:'Three times a true-love's knot I tie secure;Firm be the knot, firm may his love endure!'With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground,And turn me thrice around, around, around.
As I was wont I trudged last market-dayTo town, with new-laid eggs preserved in hay.I made my market long before 'twas night;My purse grew heavy and my basket light:Straight to the 'pothecary's shop I went,And in love-powder all my money spent.Behap what will, next Sunday after prayers,When to the alehouse Lubberkin repairs,These golden flies into his mug I'll throw,And soon the swain with fervent love shall glow.With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground,And turn me thrice around, around, around.
But hold! our Lightfoot barks, and cocks his ears:O'er yonder stile, see, Lubberkin appears!He comes, he comes! Hobnelia's not betrayed,Nor shall she, crowned with willow, die a maid.He vows, he swears, he'll give me a green gown:Oh, dear! I fall adown, adown, adown!
If clothed in black you tread the busy town,Or if distinguished by the reverend gown,Three trades avoid: oft in the mingling pressThe barber's apron soils the sable dress;Shun the perfumer's touch with cautious eye,Nor let the baker's step advance too nigh.Ye walkers too that youthful colours wear,Three sullying trades avoid with equal care:The little chimney-sweeper skulks along,And marks with sooty stains the heedless throng;When 'Small-coal!' murmurs in the hoarser throat,From smutty dangers guard thy threatened coat;The dust-man's cart offends thy clothes and eyes,When through the street a cloud of ashes flies.But whether black or lighter dyes are worn,The chandler's basket, on his shoulder borne,With tallow spots thy coat; resign the wayTo shun the surly butcher's greasy tray—Butchers whose hands are dyed with blood's foul stain,And always foremost in the hangman's train.
Let due civilities be strictly paid:The wall surrender to the hooded maid,Nor let thy sturdy elbow's hasty rageJostle the feeble steps of trembling age;And when the porter bends beneath his load,And pants for breath, clear thou the crowded road;But, above all, the groping blind direct,And from the pressing throng the lame protect.You'll sometimes meet a fop, of nicest tread,Whose mantling peruke veils his empty head;At every step he dreads the wall to loseAnd risks, to save a coach, his red-heeled shoes:Him, like the miller, pass with caution by,Lest from his shoulder clouds of powder fly.But when the bully, with assuming pace,Cocks his broad hat, edged round with tarnished lace,Yield not the way; defy his strutting pride,And thrust him to the muddy kennel's side;He never turns again nor dares oppose,But mutters coward curses as he goes.
All in the Downs the fleet was moored,The streamers waving in the wind,When black-eyed Susan came aboard:'Oh, where shall I my true love find?Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me trueIf my sweet William sails among the crew?'
William, who high upon the yardRocked with the billow to and fro,Soon as her well-known voice he heard,He sighed and cast his eyes below;The cord slides swiftly through his glowing hands,And, quick as lightning, on the deck he stands.
So the sweet lark, high poised in air,Shuts close his pinions to his breast,If chance his mate's shrill call he hear,And drops at once into her nest.The noblest captain in the British fleetMighty envy William's lip those kisses sweet.
'O, Susan, Susan, lovely dear,My vows shall ever true remain!Let me kiss off that falling tear:We only part to meet again.Change as ye list, ye winds! my heart shall beThe faithful compass that still points to thee.
'Believe not what the landmen say,Who tempt with doubts thy constant mind:They'll tell thee sailors, when away,In every port a mistress find—Yes, yes, believe them when they tell thee so,For thou art present wheresoe'er I go.
'If to far India's coast we sail,Thy eyes are seen in diamonds bright;Thy breath is Afric's spicy gale,Thy skin is ivory so white.Thus every beauteous object that I viewWakes in my soul some charm of lovely Sue.
'Though battle call me from thy arms,Let not my pretty Susan mourn;Though cannons roar, yet, safe from harms,William shall to his dear return.Love turns aside the balls that round me fly,Lest precious tears should drop from Susan's eye.'
The boatswain gave the dreadful word;The sails their swelling bosom spread;No longer must she stay aboard:They kissed—she sighed—he hung his head.Her lessening boat unwilling rows to land;'Adieu!' she cries, and waved her lily hand.
Life is a jest, and all things show it:I thought so once, but now I know it.
Pensive beneath a spreading oak I stoodThat veiled the hollow channel of the flood:Along whose shelving bank the violet blueAnd primrose pale in lovely mixture grew.High overarched the bloomy woodbine hung,The gaudy goldfinch from the maple sung;The little warbling minstrel of the shadeTo the gay morn her due devotion paidNext, the soft linnet echoing to the thrushWith carols filled the smelling briar-bush;While Philomel attuned her artless throat,And from the hawthorn breathed a trilling note.
Indulgent Nature smiled in every part,And filled with joy unknown my ravished heart:Attent I listened while the feathered throngAlternate finished and renewed their song.
* * * * *
Can I forget the dismal night that gaveMy soul's best part forever to the grave?How silent did his old companions tread,By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead,Through breathing statues, then unheeded things,Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings!What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire;The pealing organ, and the pausing choir;The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid;And the last words, that dust to dust conveyed!While speechless o'er thy closing grave we bend,Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend.Oh, gone forever! take this long adieu;And sleep in peace next thy loved Montague!
To strew fresh laurels, let the task be mine,A frequent pilgrim at thy sacred shrine;Mine with true sighs thy absence to bemoan,And grave with faithful epitaphs thy stone.If e'er from me thy loved memorial part,May shame afflict this alienated heart;Of thee forgetful if I form a song,My lyre be broken, and untuned my tongue,My griefs be doubled from thy image free,And mirth a torment, unchastised by thee!
Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,(Sad luxury to vulgar minds unknown)Along the walls where speaking marbles showWhat worthies form the hallowed mould below;Proud names, who once the reins of empire held;In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled;
Chiefs graced with scars and prodigal of blood;Stern patriots who for sacred freedom stood;Just men by whom impartial laws were given;And saints who taught and led the way to Heaven.Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest,Since their foundation came a nobler guest;Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyedA fairer spirit or more welcome shade.
* * * * *
That awful form (which, so ye Heavens decree,Must still be loved and still deplored by me,)In nightly visions seldom fails to rise,Or, roused by fancy, meets my waking eyes.If business calls or crowded courts invite,Th' unblemished statesman seems to strike my sight;If in the stage I seek to soothe my care,I meet his soul which breathes in Cato there;If pensive to the rural shades I rove,His shape o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;'Twas there of just and good he reasoned strong,Cleared some great truth, or raised some serious song:There patient showed us the wise course to steer,A candid censor, and a friend severe;There taught us how to live, and (oh! too highThe price for knowledge) taught us how to die.
By the blue taper's trembling light,No more I waste the wakeful night,Intent with endless view to poreThe schoolmen and the sages o'er;Their books from wisdom widely stray,Or point at best the longest way.I'll seek a readier path, and goWhere wisdom's surely taught below.
How deep yon azure dyes the sky,Where orbs of gold unnumbered lie,While through their ranks in silver prideThe nether crescent seems to glide!The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe,The lake is smooth and clear beneath,Where once again the spangled showDescends to meet our eyes below.The grounds which on the right aspire,In dimness from the view retire:The left presents a place of graves,Whose wall the silent water laves.That steeple guides thy doubtful sightAmong the livid gleams of night.There pass, with melancholy state,By all the solemn heaps of fate,And think, as softly-sad you treadAbove the venerable dead,'Time was, like thee they life possessed,And time shall be, that thou shalt rest.'
Those graves, with bending osier bound,That nameless heave the crumbled ground,Quick to the glancing thought disclose,Where toil and poverty repose.The flat smooth stones that bear a name,The chisel's slender help to fame,(Which ere our set of friends decayTheir frequent steps may wear away;)A middle race of mortals own,Men, half ambitious, all unknown.The marble tombs that rise on high,Whose dead in vaulted arches lie,Whose pillars swell with sculptured stones,Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones;These, all the poor remains of state,Adorn the rich, or praise the great;Who while on earth in fame they live,Are senseless of the fame they give.
Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades,The bursting earth unveils the shades!All slow, and wan, and wrapped with shroudsThey rise in visionary crowds,And all with sober accent cry,'Think, mortal, what it is to die.'
Now from yon black and funeral yewThat bathes the charnel house with dewMethinks I hear a voice begin:(Ye ravens, cease your croaking din;Ye tolling clocks, no time resoundO'er the long lake and midnight ground)It sends a peal of hollow groansThus speaking from among the bones:'When men my scythe and darts supply,How great a king of fears am I!They view me like the last of things:They make, and then they dread, my stings.Fools! if you less provoked your fears,No more my spectre-form appears.Death's but a path that must be trodIf man would ever pass to God,A port of calms, a state of easeFrom the rough rage of swelling seas.'
Lovely, lasting peace of mind!Sweet delight of humankind!Heavenly-born, and bred on high,To crown the favourites of the skyWith more of happiness belowThan victors in a triumph know!Whither, O whither art thou fled,To lay thy meek, contented head?What happy region dost thou pleaseTo make the seat of calms and ease?
Ambition searches all its sphereOf pomp and state, to meet thee there.Increasing Avarice would findThy presence in its gold enshrined.
The bold adventurer ploughs his way,Through rocks amidst the foaming sea,To gain thy love; and then perceivesThou wert not in the rocks and waves.The silent heart which grief assails,Treads soft and lonesome o'er the vales,Sees daisies open, rivers run,And seeks, as I have vainly done,Amusing thought; but learns to knowThat solitude's the nurse of woe.No real happiness is foundIn trailing purple o'er the ground;Or in a soul exalted high,To range the circuit of the sky,Converse with stars above, and knowAll nature in its forms below;The rest it seeks, in seeking dies,And doubts at last, for knowledge, rise.
Lovely, lasting peace, appear!This world itself, if thou art here,Is once again with Eden blest,And man contains it in his breast.
'Twas thus, as under shade I stood,I sung my wishes to the wood,And lost in thought, no more perceivedThe branches whisper as they waved:It seemed, as all the quiet placeConfess'd the presence of the Grace.When thus she spoke—'Go rule thy will,Bid thy wild passions all be still,Know God, and bring thy heart to knowThe joys which from religion flow;Then every grace shall prove its guest,And I'll be there to crown the rest.'
Oh! by yonder mossy seat,In my hours of sweet retreat,Might I thus my soul employ,With sense of gratitude and joy!Raised as ancient prophets were,In heavenly vision, praise, and prayer;Pleasing all men, hurting none,Pleased and blessed with God alone;Then while the gardens take my sight,With all the colours of delight;While silver waters glide along,To please my ear, and court my song;I'll lift my voice, and tune my string,And thee, great Source of nature, sing.
The sun that walks his airy way,To light the world, and give the day;The moon that shines with borrowed light;The stars that gild the gloomy night;The seas that roll unnumbered waves;The wood that spreads its shady leaves;The field whose ears conceal the grain,The yellow treasure of the plain;All of these, and all I see,Should be sung, and sung by me:They speak their Maker as they can,But want and ask the tongue of man.
Go search among your idle dreams,Your busy or your vain extremes;And find a life of equal bliss,Or own the next begun in this.
From THE GENTLE SHEPHERD
Beneath the south side of a craigy bield,Where crystal springs the halesome waters yield,Twa youthfu' shepherds on the gowans lay,Tenting their flocks ae bonny morn of May.Poor Roger granes, till hollow echoes ring;But blither Patie likes to laugh and sing.
Patie.My Peggy is a young thing,Just entered in her teens,Fair as the day, and sweet as May,Fair as the day, and always gay;My Peggy is a young thing,And I'm not very auld,Yet well I like to meet her atThe wauking of the fauld.
My Peggy speaks sae sweetlyWhene'er we meet alane,I wish nae mair to lay my care,I wish nae mair of a' that's rare:My Peggy speaks sae sweetly,To a' the lave I'm cauld,But she gars a' my spirits glowAt wauking of the fauld.
My Peggy smiles sae kindlyWhene'er I whisper love,That I look down on a' the town,That I look down upon a crown;My Peggy smiles sae kindly,It makes me blythe and bauld,And naething gi'es me sic delightAt wauking of the fauld.
My Peggy sings sae saftlyWhen on my pipe I play,By a' the rest it is confest,By a' the rest, that she sings best;My Peggy sings sae saftly,And in her sangs are tauldWith innocence the wale of sense,At wauking of the fauld.
This sunny morning, Roger, chears my blood,And puts all Nature in a jovial mood.How hartsome is't to see the rising plants,To hear the birds chirm o'er their pleasing rants!
How halesom 'tis to snuff the cauler air,And all the sweets it bears, when void of care!What ails thee, Roger, then? what gars thee grane?Tell me the cause of thy ill-seasoned pain.
Roger.I'm born, O Patie, to a thrawart fate;I'm born to strive with hardships sad and great!Tempests may cease to jaw the rowan flood,Corbies and tods to grein for lambkins' blood;But I, oppressed with never-ending grief,Maun ay despair of lighting on relief.
* * * * *
You have sae saft a voice and slid a tongue,You are the darling of baith auld and young:If I but ettle at a sang or speak,They dit their lugs, syne up their leglens cleek,And jeer me hameward frae the loan or bught,While I'm confused with mony a vexing thought;Yet I am tall, and as well built as thee,Nor mair unlikely to a lass's eye;For ilka sheep ye have I'll number ten,And should, as ane may think, come farer ben.
* * * * *
Patie.Daft gowk! leave aff that silly whinging way!Seem careless: there's my hand ye'll win the day.Hear how I served my lass I love as weelAs ye do Jenny and with heart as leel.Last morning I was gay and early out;Upon a dyke I leaned, glowring about.I saw my Meg come linkan o'er the lea;I saw my Meg, but Peggy saw na me,For yet the sun was wading thro' the mist,And she was close upon me e'er she wist:Her coats were kiltit, and did sweetly shawHer straight bare legs, that whiter were than snaw.Her cockernony snooded up fou sleek,Her haffet-locks hang waving on her cheek;Her cheeks sae ruddy, and her een sae clear;And, oh, her mouth's like ony hinny pear;Neat, neat she was in bustine waistcoat clean,As she came skiffing o'er the dewy green.Blythesome I cried, 'My bonnie Meg, come here!I ferly wherefore ye're sae soon asteer,
But I can guess ye're gawn to gather dew.'She scoured awa, and said, 'What's that to you?''Then fare ye weel, Meg Dorts, and e'en's ye like,'I careless cried, and lap in o'er the dyke.I trow when, that she saw, within a crackShe came with a right thieveless errand back:Misca'd me first; then bade me hound my dog,To wear up three waff ewes strayed on the bog.I leugh, an sae did she: then with great hasteI clasped my arms about her neck and waist,About her yielding waist, and took a fourthOf sweetest kisses frae her glowing mouth;While hard and fast I held her in my grips,My very saul came louping to my lips;Sair, sair she flet wi' me 'tween ilka smack,But weel I kenned she meant nae as she spak.Dear Roger, when your jo puts on her gloom,Do ye sae too and never fash your thumb:Seem to forsake her, soon she'll change her mood;Gae woo anither, and she'll gang clean wood.
Dear Roger, if your Jenny geck,And answer kindness with a slight,Seem unconcerned at her neglect;For women in a man delight,But them despise who're soon defeatAnd with a simple face give wayTo a repulse: then he not blate;Push bauldly on, and win the day.
When maidens, innocently young,Say aften what they never mean,Ne'er mind their pretty lying tongue,But tent the language of their een:If these agree, and she persistTo answer all your love with hate,Seek elsewhere to be better blest,And let her sigh when'tis too late.
Roger.Kind Patie, now fair fa' your honest heart!Ye're ay sae cadgy, and have sie an art
To hearten ane; for now, as clean's a leek,Ye've cherished me since ye began to speak.Sae, for your pains, I'll mak ye a propine(My mother, rest her saul! she made it fine)—A tartan plaid, spun of good hawslock woo,Scarlet and green the sets, the borders blue,With spraings like gowd and siller crossed with black;I never had it yet upon my back:Weel are ye wordy o' 't, what have sae kindSed up my reveled doubts and cleared my mind.
Timely blossom, infant fair,Pondling of a happy pair,Every morn and every nightTheir solicitous delight;Sleeping, waking, still at ease,Pleasing, without skill to please;Little gossip, blithe and hale,Tattling many a broken tale,Singing many a tuneless song,Lavish of a heedless tongue.Simple maiden, void of art,Babbling out the very heart,Yet abandoned to thy will,Yet imagining no ill,Yet too innocent to blush;Like the linnet in the bush,To the mother-linnet's noteModuling her slender throat,Chirping forth thy pretty joys;Wanton in the change of toys,Like the linnet green, in May,Flitting to each bloomy spray;
Wearied then, and glad of rest,Like the linnet in the nest.This thy present happy lot,This, in time, will be forgot;Other pleasures, other cares,Ever-busy Time prepares;And thou shalt in thy daughter seeThis picture once resembled thee.
Silent Nymph, with curious eye!Who, the purple evening, lieOn the mountain's lonely van,Beyond the noise of busy man;Painting fair the form of things,While the yellow linnet sings;Or the tuneful nightingaleCharms the forest with her tale;Come, with all thy various hues,Come, and aid thy sister Muse;Now while Phoebus riding highGives lustre to the land and sky!Grongar Hill invites my song,Draw the landscape bright and strong;Grongar, in whose mossy cellsSweetly musing Quiet dwells;Grongar, in whose silent shade,For the modest Muses 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 strayed my eyes o'er Towy's flood.Over mead, and over wood,From house to house, from hill to hill,'Till Contemplation had her fill.About his chequered sides I wind,And leave his brooks and meads behind,And groves, and grottoes where I lay,And vistas shooting beams of day:Wide and wider spreads the vale,As circles on a smooth canal:The mountains round—unhappy fate!Sooner or later, of all height,Withdraw their summits from the skies,And lessen as the others rise:Still the prospect wider spreads,Adds a thousand woods and meads;Still it widens, widens still,And sinks the newly-risen hill.
Now I gain the mountain's brow,What a landscape lies below!No clouds, no vapours intervene,But the gay, the open sceneDoes the face of nature shew,In all the hues of heaven's bow!And, swelling to embrace the light,Spreads around beneath the sight.
Old castles on the cliffs arise,Proudly towering in the skies!Rushing from the woods, the spiresSeem from hence ascending fires!Half his beams Apollo shedsOn the yellow mountain-heads!Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,And glitters on the broken rocks!
Below me trees unnumbered rise,Beautiful in various dyes:The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,The yellow beech, the sable yew,The slender fir, that taper grows,The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs;And beyond the purple grove,Haunt of Phillis, queen of love!Gaudy as the opening dawn,Lies a long and level lawnOn which a dark hill, steep and high,Holds and charms the wandering eye!
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,His sides are clothed with waving wood,And ancient towers crown his brow,That cast an awful look below;Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,And with her arms from falling keeps;So both a safety from the windOn mutual dependence find.
'Tis now the raven's bleak abode;'Tis now th' apartment of the toad;And there the fox securely feeds;And there the poisonous adder breedsConcealed in ruins, moss, and weeds:While, ever and anon, there fallsHuge heaps of hoary mouldered walls.Yet time has seen, that lifts the low,And level lays the lofty brow,Has seen this broken pile complete,Big with the vanity of state;But transient is the smile of fate!A little rule, a little sway,A sunbeam in a winter's day,Is all the proud and mighty haveBetween the cradle and the grave.
And see the rivers how they run,Through woods and meads, in shade and sun,Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,Wave succeeding wave, they goA various journey to the deep,Like human life to endless sleep!Thus is nature's vesture wrought,To instruct our wandering thought;Thus she dresses green and gay,To disperse our cares away.
Ever charming, ever new,When will the landscape tire the view!The fountain's fall, the river's flow,The woody valleys warm and low;The windy summit, wild and high,Roughly rushing on the sky;The pleasant seat, the ruined tower,The naked rock, the shady bower;
The town and village, dome and farm,Each gives each a double charm,As pearls upon an Aethiop's arm.
See, on the mountain's southern side,Where the prospect opens wide,Where the evening gilds the tide;How close and small the hedges lie!What streaks of meadows cross the eye!A step methinks may pass the stream,So little distant dangers seem;So we mistake the future's face,Eyed through Hope's deluding glass;As yon summits soft and fairClad in colours of the air,Which to those who journey near,Barren, brown, and rough appear;Still we tread the same coarse way;The present's still a cloudy day.
O may I with myself agree,And never covet what I see:Content me with an humble shade,My passions tamed, my wishes laid;For while our wishes wildly roll,We banish quiet from the soul:'Tis thus the busy beat the air;And misers gather wealth and care.
Now, even now, my joys run high,As on the mountain-turf I lie;While the wanton Zephyr sings,And in the vale perfumes his wings;While the waters murmur deep;While the shepherd charms his sheep;While the birds unbounded fly,And with music fill the sky,Now, even now, my joys, run high.
Be full, ye courts, be great who will;Search for Peace with all your skill:Open wide the lofty door,Seek her on the marble floor,In vain ye search, she is not there;In vain ye search the domes of Care!
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,On the meads, and mountain-heads,Along with Pleasure, close allied,Ever by each other's side:And often, by the murmuring rill,Hears the thrush, while all is still,Within the groves of Grongar Hill.
The Muse, disgusted at an age and climeBarren of every glorious theme,In distant lands now waits a better time,Producing subjects worthy fame:
In happy climes where from the genial sunAnd virgin earth such scenes ensue,The force of art in nature seems outdone,And fancied beauties by the true:
In happy climes, the seat of innocence,Where nature guides and virtue rules,Where men shall not impose for truth and senseThe pedantry of courts and schools.
There shall be sung another golden age,The rise of empire and of arts,The good and great inspiring epic rage,The wisest heads and noblest hearts.
Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;Such as she bred when fresh and young,When heavenly flame did animate her clay,By future poets shall be sung.
Westward the course of empire takes its way;The four first acts already past,A fifth shall close the drama with the day;Time's noblest offspring is the last.
The keener tempests come; and, fuming dunFrom all the livid east or piercing north,Thick clouds ascend, in whose capacious wombA vapoury deluge lies, to snow congealed.Heavy they roll their fleecy world along,And the sky saddens with the gathered storm.Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends,At first thin wavering, till at last the flakesFall broad and wide and fast, dimming the dayWith a continual flow. The cherished fieldsPut on their winter robe of purest white;'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow meltsAlong the mazy current; low the woodsBow their hoar head; and ere the languid sunFaint from the west emits his evening ray,Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill,Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wideThe works of man. Drooping, the labourer-oxStands covered o'er with snow, and then demandsThe fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,Tamed by the cruel season, crowd aroundThe winnowing store, and claim the little boonWhich Providence assigns them. One alone,The redbreast, sacred to the household gods,Wisely regardful of th' embroiling sky,In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted manHis annual visit: half-afraid, he firstAgainst the window beats; then brisk alightsOn the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,Eyes all the smiling family askance,And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is,Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbsAttract his slender feet. The foodless wildsPour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,Though timorous of heart and hard besetBy death in various forms—dark snares, and dogs,And more unpitying men,—the garden seeks,Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kindEye the black heaven, and next the glistening earth,With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed,Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.
Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be kind:Baffle the raging year, and fill their pensWith food at will; lodge them below the storm,And watch them strict, for from the bellowing east,In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wingSweeps up the burthen of whole wintry plainsAt one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks,Hid in the hollow of two neighbouring hills,The billowy tempest whelms, till, upward urged,The valley to a shining mountain swells,Tipped with a wreath high-curling in the sky.
As thus the snows arise, and foul and fierceAll Winter drives along the darkened air,In his own loose-revolving fields the swainDisastered stands; sees other hills ascend,Of unknown, joyless brow, and other scenes,Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain;Nor finds the river nor the forest, hidBeneath the formless wild, but wanders onFrom hill to dale, still more and more astray,Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,Stung with the thoughts of home. The thoughts of homeRush on his nerves, and call their vigour forthIn many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul,What black despair, what horror fills his heart,When, for the dusky spot which fancy feigned
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,He meets the roughness of the middle waste,Far from the track and blest abode of man,While round him night resistless closes fast,And every tempest, howling o'er his head,Renders the savage wilderness more wild!Then throng the busy shapes into his mindOf covered pits unfathomably deep(A dire descent!), beyond the power of frost;Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,Smoothed up with snow; and—what is land unknown,What water—of the still unfrozen spring,In the loose marsh or solitary lake,Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.These check his fearful steps; and down he sinksBeneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,Mixed with the tender anguish nature shootsThrough the wrung bosom of the dying man—His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.In vain for him th' officious wife preparesThe fire fair-blazing and the vestment warm;In vain his little children, peeping outInto the mingling storm, demand their sire,With tears of artless innocence. Alas!Nor wife nor children more shall he behold,Nor friends nor sacred home: on every nerveThe deadly Winter seizes, shuts up sense,And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,Lays him along the snows a stiffened corse,Stretched out and bleaching in the northern blast.
Ah, little think the gay licentious proudWhom pleasure, power, and affluence surround;They who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirthAnd wanton, often cruel, riot waste;Ah, little think they, while they dance along,How many feel, this very moment, deathAnd all the sad variety of pain:How many sink in the devouring flood,Or more devouring flame; how many bleed,By shameful variance betwixt man and man;How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms,
Shut from the common air, and common useOf their own limbs; how many drink the cupOf baleful grief, or eat the bitter breadOf misery; sore pierced by wintry winds,How many shrink into the sordid hutOf cheerless poverty; how many shakeWith all the fiercer tortures of the mind,Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse;Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life,They furnish matter for the tragic Muse;Even in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell,With friendship, peace, and contemplation joined,How many, racked with honest passions, droopIn deep retired distress; how many standAround the deathbed of their dearest friends,And point the parting anguish. Thought fond manOf these, and all the thousand nameless ills,That one incessant struggle render life,One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,Vice in his high career would stand appalled,And heedless rambling impulse learn to think;The conscious heart of charity would warm,And her wide wish benevolence dilate;The social tear would rise, the social sigh;And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,Refining still, the social passions work.
From SUMMER
Forever running an enchanted round,Passes the day, deceitful vain and void,As fleets the vision o'er the formful brain,This moment hurrying wild th' impassioned soul,The nest 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 rolled,Himself an useless load, has squandered vile,Upon his scoundrel train, what might have cheeredA drooping family of modest worth.
But to the generous still-improving mind,That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy,Diffusing kind beneficence around,Boastless,—as now descends the silent dew,—To him the long review of ordered lifeIs inward rapture, only to be felt.
Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come!And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,While music wakes around, veiled in a showerOf shadowing roses, on our plains descend!
O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courtsWith unaffected grace, or walk the plainWith Innocence and Meditation joinedIn soft assemblage, listen to my song,Which thy own season paints, when nature allIs blooming and benevolent, like thee.
And see where surly Winter passes off,Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts:His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,The shattered forest, and the ravaged vale;While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch—Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost—The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed,And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze,Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleetsDeform the day delightless; so that scarceThe bittern knows his time, with bill engulfed,To shake the sounding marsh, or from the shoreThe plovers when to scatter o'er the heathAnd sing their wild notes to the listening waste.At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun,And the bright Bull receives him. Then no moreTh' expansive atmosphere is cramped with cold,But, full of life and vivifying soul,Lifts the light clouds sublime and spreads them thin,Fleecy and white, o'er all-surrounding heaven;
Forth fly the tepid airs, and, unconfined,Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays.Joyous, th' impatient husbandman perceivesRelenting nature, and his lusty steersDrives from their stalls, to where the well-used ploughLies in the furrow, loosened from the frost;There, unrefusing, to the harnessed yokeThey lend their shoulder, and begin their toil,Cheered by the simple song and soaring lark;Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining shareThe master leans, removes th' obstructing clay,Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe.White through the neighbouring fields the sower stalks,With measured step, and liberal throws the grainInto the faithful bosom of the ground;The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.
Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious manHas done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow!Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend!And temper all, thou world-reviving sun,Into the perfect year! Nor ye who liveIn luxury and ease, in pomp and pride,Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear.Such themes as these the rural Maro sungTo wide-imperial Rome, in the full heightOf elegance and taste, by Greece refined.In ancient times, the sacred plough employedThe kings and awful fathers of mankind;And some, with whom compared your insect tribesAre but the beings of a summer's day,Have held the scale of empire, ruled the stormOf mighty war, then with victorious hand,Disdaining little delicacies, seizedThe plough, and, greatly independent, scornedAll the vile stores corruption can bestow.Ye generous Britons, venerate the plough;And o'er your hills and long-withdrawing valesLet Autumn spread his treasures to the sun,Luxuriant and unbounded! As the sea,Far through his azure, turbulent domain,Your empire owns, and from a thousand shoresWafts all the pomp of life into your ports,
So with superior boon may your rich soilExuberant, Nature's better blessings pourO'er every land, the naked nations clothe,And be th' exhaustless granary of a world.
Nor only through the lenient air this change,Delicious, breathes: the penetrative sun,His force deep-darting to the dark retreatOf vegetation, sets the steaming powerAt large, to wander o'er the verdant earth,In various hues—but chiefly thee, gay green!Thou smiling Nature's universal robe,United light and shade, where the sight dwellsWith growing strength and ever new delight.From the moist meadow to the withered hill,Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,And swells and deepens to the cherished eye.The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy grovesPut forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,Till the whole leafy forest stands displayedIn full luxuriance to the sighing gales,Where the deer rustle through the twining brake,And the birds sing concealed. At once, arrayedIn all the colours of the flushing yearBy Nature's swift and secret-working hand,The garden glows, and fills the liberal airWith lavished fragrance, while the promised fruitLies yet a little embryo, unperceived,Within its crimson folds. Now from the town,Buried in smoke and sleep and noisome damps,Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling dropsFrom the bent bush, as through the verdant mazeOf sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk;Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascendSome eminence, Augusta, in thy plains,And see the country, far diffused around,One boundless blush, one white-empurpled showerOf mingled blossoms, where the raptured eyeHurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneathThe fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.
* * * * *
What is this mighty breath, ye sages, say,That in a powerful language, felt not heard,Instructs the fowl of heaven, and through their breastThese arts of love diffuses? What but God?Inspiring God! who boundless spirit all,And unremitting energy, pervades,Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole.He ceaseless works alone, and yet aloneSeems not to work; with such perfection framedIs this complex, stupendous scheme of things.But, though concealed, to every purer eyeTh' informing author in his works appears:Chief, lovely Spring, in thee, and thy soft scenes,The smiling God is seen; while water, earth,And air attest his bounty; which exaltsThe brute creation to this finer thought,And annual melts their undesigning heartsProfusely thus in tenderness and joy,
Still let my song a nobler note assume,And sing th' infusive force of Spring on man,When heaven and earth, as if contending, vieTo raise his being, and serene his soul.Can he forbear to join the general smileOf nature? Can fierce passions vex his breast,While every gale is peace, and every groveIs melody? Hence from the bounteous walksOf flowing Spring, ye sordid sons of earth,Hard, and unfeeling of another's woe;Or only lavish to yourselves; away!But come, ye generous minds, la whose wide thought,Of all his works, creative bounty burnsWith warmest beam!
But see! the fading many-coloured woods,Shade deepening over shade, the country roundImbrown, a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue from wan declining greenTo sooty dark. These now the lonesome Muse,Low-whispering, lead into their leaf-strown walks,And give the season in its latest view.Meantime, light-shadowing all, a sober calmFleeces unbounded ether, whose least waveStands tremulous, uncertain where to turnThe gentle current, while, illumined wide,The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun,And through their lucid veil his softened forceShed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time,For those whom wisdom and whom nature charm,To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd,And soar above this little scene of things,To tread low-thoughted Vice beneath their feet,To soothe the throbbing passions into peace,And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks.Thus solitary, and in pensive guise,Oft let me wander o'er the russet meadAnd through the saddened grove, where scarce is heardOne dying strain to cheer the woodman's toil.Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint,Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse;While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks,And each wild throat whose artless strains so lateSwelled all the music of the swarming shades,Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sitOn the dead tree, a dull despondent flock,With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes,And naught save chattering discord in their note.Oh, let not, aimed from some inhuman eye,The gun the music of the coming yearDestroy, and harmless, unsuspecting harm,Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey,In mingled murder fluttering on the ground!The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,A gentler mood inspires: for now the leafIncessant rustles from the mournful grove,Oft startling such as, studious, walk below,And slowly circles through the waving air;But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams,Till, choked and matted with the dreary shower,The forest walks, at every rising gale,Roll wide the withered waste and whistle bleak.Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields,And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery raceTheir sunny robes resign; even what remainedOf stronger fruits fall from the naked tree;And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around,The desolated, prospect thrills the soul.
These, as they change, Almighty Father, these,Are but the varied God. The rolling yearIs full of Thee. Forth In the pleasing SpringThy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.Wide-flush the fields; the softening air is balm;Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;And every sense, and every heart is joy.Then comes thy glory in the summer-months,With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sunShoots full perfection through the swelling year:And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfined,And spreads a common feast for all that lives.In winter awful thou' with clouds and stormsAround thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolledMajestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force DivineDeepfelt, in these appear! a simple train,Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,Such beauty and beneficence combined:Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;And all so forming an harmonious whole;
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand;That, ever-busy, wheels the silent spheres;Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thenceThe fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring:Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join every living soul,Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,In adoration join; and ardent raiseOne general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes.Oh, talk of Him in solitary gloomsWhere o'er the rock the scarcely waving pineFills the brown shade with a religious awe;And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heavenTh' impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;And let me catch it as I muse along.Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;Ye softer floods, that lead the humid mazeAlong the vale; and thou, majestic main,A secret world of wonders in thyself,Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voiceOr bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.So roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts,Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave to Him;Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.Ye that keep watch in Heaven, as earth asleepUnconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams;Ye constellations, while your angels strike,Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! blest image here belowOf thy Creator, ever pouring wide,Prom world to world, the vital ocean round,On nature write with every beam His praise.The thunder rolls: be hushed the prostrate world,While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye mossy rocks,Retain the sound; the broad responsive low,Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns,And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.Ye woodlands, all awake; a boundless songBurst from the groves; and when the restless day,Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charmThe listening shades, and teach the night His praise.Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles;At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all,Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,Assembled men to the deep organ joinThe long resounding voice, oft breaking clear,At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;And, as each mingling flame increases each,In one united ardour rise to Heaven.Or if you rather choose the rural shade,And find a fane in every sacred grove,There let the shepherd's lute, the virgin's lay,The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,Still sing the God of Seasons as they roll.For me, when I forget the darling theme,Whether the blossom blows, the Summer rayRussets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,Or Winter rises in the blackening east—Se my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more,And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat.
Should Fate command me to the furthest vergeOf the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,Rivers unknown to song; where first the sunGilds Indian mountains, or his setting beamFlames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis nought to me;Since God is ever present, ever felt,In the void waste as in the city full;
And where He vital breathes, there must be joy.When even at last the solemn hour shall come,And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,I cheerfully will obey; there with new powers,Will rising wonders sing. I cannot goWhere Universal Love not smiles around,Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;From seeming evil still educing good,And better thence again, and better still,In infinite progression. But I loseMyself in Him, in Light ineffable!Come, then, expressive silence, muse His praise.
When Britain first, at Heaven's command,Arose from out the azure main,This was the charter of the land,And guardian angels sang this strain:Rule, Britannia, Britannia rules the waves!Britons never will be slaves!
The nations not so blest as thee,Must in their turns to tyrants fall,Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free,The dread and envy of them all.Rule, Britannia, etc.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,More dreadful from each foreign stroke;As the loud blast that tears the skies,Serves but to root thy native oak.Rule, Britannia, etc.
Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;And their attempts to bend thee downWill but arouse thy generous flame,But work their woe and thy renown.Rule, Britannia, etc.
To thee belongs the rural reign;Thy cities shall with commerce shine;All thine shall be the subject main,And every shore it circles thine.Rule, Britannia, etc.
The Muses, still with freedom found,Shall to thy happy coast repair;Blest isle, with matchless beauty crowned,And manly hearts to guard the fair!Rule, Britannia, etc.
From THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE
O mortal man, who livest here by toil,Do not complain of this thy hard estate:That like an emmet thou must ever moilIs a sad sentence of an ancient date;And, certes, there is for it reason great,For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wailAnd curse thy star, and early drudge and late,Withouten that would come an heavier bale—Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.
In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,With woody hill o'er hill encompassed round,A most enchanting wizard did abide,Than whom, a fiend more fell is nowhere found.It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground;And there a season atween June and May,Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned,A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,No living wight could work, ne carèd even for play.
Was naught around but images of rest:Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between;And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kest,From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green,Where never yet was creeping creature seen.Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets played,And hurlèd everywhere their waters sheen,That, as they bickered through the sunny glade,Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.
Joined to the prattle of the purling rills,Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,And flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills,And vacant shepherds piping in the dale;And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,Or stock doves 'plain amid the forest deep,That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;And still a coil the grasshopper did keep:Yet all these sounds, yblent, inclinèd all to sleep.
Pull in the passage of the vale, above,A sable, silent, solemn forest stood,Where naught but shadowy forms was seen to move,As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood;And up the hills, on either side, a woodOf blackening pines, aye waving to and fro,Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;And where this valley winded out, below,The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.
A pleasing land of drowsyhed it was:Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,Forever flushing round a summer sky.There eke the soft delights, that witchinglyInstil a wanton sweetness through the breast,And the calm pleasures, always hovered nigh;But whate'er smacked of 'noyance or unrestWas far, far off expelled from this delicious nest.
The landskip such, inspiring perfect ease,Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight)Close-hid his castle mid embowering trees,That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright,And made a kind of checkered day and night.Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate,Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wightWas placed; and, to his lute, of cruel fateAnd labour harsh complained, lamenting man's estate.
Thither continual pilgrims crowded still,From all the roads of earth that pass there by;For, as they chaunced to breathe on neighbouring hill,The freshness of this valley smote their eye,And drew them ever and anon more nigh,Till clustering round th' enchanter false they hung,Ymolten with his syren melody.While o'er th' enfeebling lute his hand he flung,And to the trembling chords these tempting verses sung:
'Behold, ye pilgrims of this earth, behold!See all but man with unearned pleasure gay!See her bright robes the butterfly unfold,Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May.What youthful bride can equal her array?Who can with her for easy pleasure vie?From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray,From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly,Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.
'Behold the merry minstrels of the morn,The swarming songsters of the careless grove,Ten thousand throats that, from the flowering thorn,Hymn their good God and carol sweet of love,Such grateful kindly raptures them emove!They neither plough nor sow; ne, fit for flail,E'er to the barn the nodding sheaves they drove;Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale,Whatever crowns the hill or smiles along the vale.
'Outcast of Nature, man! the wretched thrallOf bitter-dropping sweat, of sweltry pain,Of cares that eat away thy heart with gall,And of the vices, an inhuman train,That all proceed from savage thirst of gain:For when hard-hearted Interest first beganTo poison earth, Astraea left the plain;Guile, violence, and murder seized on man,And, for soft milky streams, with blood the rivers ran.'
He ceased. But still their trembling ears retainedThe deep vibrations of his 'witching song,That, by a kind of magic power, constrainedTo enter in, pell-mell, the listening throng:Heaps poured on heaps, and yet they slipped alongIn silent ease; as when beneath the beamOf summer moons, the distant woods among,Or by some flood all silvered with the gleam,The soft-embodied fays through airy portal stream.
* * * * *
Of all the gentle tenants of the place,There was a man of special grave remark;A certain tender gloom o'erspread his face,Pensive, not sad; in thought involved, not dark;As soote this man could sing as morning lark,And teach the noblest morals of the heart;But these his talents were yburied stark:Of the fine stores he nothing would impart,Which or boon Nature gave, or nature-painting Art.
To noontide shades incontinent he ran,Where purls the brook with sleep-inviting sound,Or when Dan Sol to slope his wheels began,Amid the broom he basked him on the ground,Where the wild thyme and camomil are found;There would he linger, till the latest rayOf light sate trembling on the welkin's bound,Then homeward through the twilight shadows stray,Sauntering and slow: so had he passed many a day.
Yet not in thoughtless slumber were they passed;For oft the heavenly fire, that lay concealedBeneath the sleeping embers, mounted fast,And all its native light anew revealed;Oft as he traversed the cerulean field,And marked the clouds that drove before the wind,Ten thousand glorious systems would he build,Ten thousand great ideas filled his mind:But with the clouds they fled, and left no trace behind.