greatest, of magicians or enchanters.
Atween, between.
Aye, always.
Gear, or Geer, furniture,
Moil, to labour.
Mote, might.
Perdie, (French, par Dieu,) Wis, (for Wist,) to know,
Prick'd through the forest,
rode through the forest.
Sear, dry, burnt up.
Sheen, bright, shining.
Sicker, sure, surely.
Soot, sweet, or sweetly.
Sooth, true, or truth.
Stound, misfortune, pang.
Sweltry, sultry, consuming
with heat. Swink, to labour.
Thrall, slave.
Transmew'd, transformed.
Unkempt, (Latin, incomp
tus,) unadorned.
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.
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.
Fia the pussure of the vale, abere,
4 skrue slent, sina jest stood :
Where mouri: ben shadowy forms was seem to move,
As Tees folled in her dreaming mood:
And if the kila a eüber side, a wood
Of Blackening pines are waring to and fro,
Sent forth a sleepy burme through the blood:
And where this valley winded out below,
The marmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.
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.
There eke the soft delights, that witchingly
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,
And the calm pleasures, always hover'd nigh;
But whate'er smack'd of noyance, or unrest,
Was far, far off expell'd from this delicious nest.
The landscape 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 chequer'd day and night.
Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate,
Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight
Was placed; and to his lute of cruel fate
And labour harsh complain'd, 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 the' enchanter false they hung,
Ymolten with his syren melody;
While o'er the' 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 unearn'd 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.
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