THE

CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

CANTO I.

The Castle hight of Indolence,

And its false luxury;
Where for a little time, alas!
We lived right jollily.

I.

O MORTAL man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date;
And, certes, there is for it reason great;

For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late;
Withouten that would come a heavier bale,
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.

II.

In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,

With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd 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 imbrown'd, A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, No living wight could work, ne cared even for play.

III.

Was nought 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, unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd, And hurl'd everywhere their waters sheen; That, as they bicker'd through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.

IV.

Join'd 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 inclined all to sleep.

V.

Full in the passage of the vale, above,

A sable, silent, solemn forest stood;

Where nought but shadowy forms were seen to move, As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood:

And up the hills, on either side, a wood

Of 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.

VI.

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,

For ever flushing round a summer-sky: