For thou canst place me near my love, Canst fold in visionary bliss,
And let me think I steal a kiss.
When young-ey'd Spring profusely throws. From her green lap the pink and rose; When the soft, turtle of the dale To Summer tells her tender tale, When Autumn cooling caverns seeks, And stains with wine his jolly cheeks When Winter like poor pilgrim old, Shakes his silver beard with cold, At ev'ry season let my ear Thy solemn whispers, Fancy, O warm enthusiastic maid, Without thy pow'rful vital aid, That breathes an energy divine That gives a soul to ev'ry line; Ne'er may I strive with lips profane. To utter an unhallow'd strain 9: Nor dare to touch the sacred string, Save when with smiles thou bid'st me sing.. O hear our prayer, O hither come From thy lamented Shakespear's tomb,. On which thou lov'st to sit at eve, Musing o'er thy darling grave; O Queen of numbers once again. Animate some chosen swain, Who fill'd with unexhausted fire May boldly strike the sounding lyre. May rise above the rhyming throng And with some new unequall'd song O'er all our list'ning passions reign O'erwhelm our souls with joy and pain;, With terror shake, with pity move,. Rouse with revenge, or melt with love. O deign t' attend his evening walk, With him in groves and grottoes talk:. Teach him to scorn with frigid art Feebly to touch th' enraptur'd heart ;, Like lightning let his mighty verse The bosom's inmost foldings pierce ::
With native beauties win applause, Beyond cold critic's studied laws: O let each Muse's fame increase. O bid Britannia rival Greece.
HENCE loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus, and blackest midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn
Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sighs unholy,
Find out some uncouth cell,
Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night raven sings;
There under ebon shades and low brow'd rocks, As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. But come, thou goddess fair and free, In heav'a yclep'd Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing Mirth, Whom lovely Venus at a birth With two sister Graces more To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore? Or whether (as some sages sing) The frolic wind that breathes the spring, Zephyr with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a Maying,
There on beds of violets blue,
And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom blithe, and debonair.
Haste thee, Nymph! and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods, and Becks and wreathed Smiles,,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides, Come, and trip it as you go On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty; And if I give thee honour due Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free; To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull night From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise; Then to come in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow Through the sweet-briar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine: While the cock with lively din Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack or the barn-door Stoutly struts his dames before, Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn, From the side of some hoar hill, Through the high wood echoing shrill : Some time walking not unseen By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, Right against the eastern gate, Where the great sun begins his state, Rob'd in flames, and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight; While the ploughman near at hand Whistles o'er the furrow'd land, And the milk-maid singeth blithe, And the mower whets his scythe, And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, Whilst the landscape round it measures, Russet lawns, and fallows gray 2
Where the nibbling flocks do stray; Mountains on whose barren breast The labouring clouds do often rest, Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide; Towers and battlements it sees Bosom'd high in tufted trees Where perhaps some beauty lies, The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes. Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes, From betwixt two aged oaks, Where Corydon and Thyrsis met, Are at their savoury dinner set Of herbs and other country messes Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses; And then in haste her bow'r she leaves, With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; Or if the earlier season lead, To the tann'd hay-cock in the mead. Sometimes with secure delight The upland hamlets will invite, When the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth, and many a maid, Dancing in the chequer'd shade; And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holiday,
Till the live-long day-light fail Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat " How fairy Mab the junkets eat; She was pinch'd and pull'd, she said, And he by friar's lanthorn led; Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn That ten day labourers could not end; Then lies him down the lubber fiend, And stretch'd out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full, out of doors he flings, Ere the first cock his mattin rings. Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep. Tow'red cities please us then
And the busy hum of
Where throngs of knights and barons bold In weeds of peace high triumphs hold, With store of ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit, or arms, while both contend To win her grace, whom all commend : There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear; And Pomp, and Feast, and Revelry, With Mask and antique Pageantry, Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse,
Such as the melting soul may pierce, In notes, with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed, and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running. Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden souls of Harmony: That Orpheus' self may heave his head. From golden slumber on a bed
Of heapt Elysian flowers, and hear Such strains, as would have won the ear Of Pluto, to have quite set free- His half-regain'd Eurydice.
These delights if thou canst give, Mirth, with thee I mean to live..
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