With the base murmure of the water's fall; The waters fall, with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call, The gently warbling wind lowe answering to all, SPENSER. SONG. Go, lovely rose! Tell her that wastes her time, and me, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. And shuns to have her graces spied, Of beauty, from the light retir'd; Suffer herself to be desir'd, The common fate of all things rare How small a part of time they share, WALLER. ADDRESS TO THE DEITY. O THOU great arbiter of life and death! The dust I tread on, high to bear my brow, BELINDA. Nor with more glories in th' ethereal plain, On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Look on her face, and you'll forget them all. POPE. THE THAMES. My eye, descending from the hill, surveys Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, Though with those streams he no resemblance hold The mower's hopes, or mock the ploughman's toil: So that to us, no thing, no place is strange, O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; DENHAM. *The Forest. THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE. IN lowly dale, fast by a river's side, Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found. A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, Was nought around but images of rest: Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between, And flow'ry beds that slumbrous influence kest, From poppies breath'd; and beds of pleasant green, Where never yet was creeping creature seen; Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd, And hurled every where their waters sheen; That, as they bicker'd through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made. Join'd to the prattle of the purpling 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. Full in the passage of the vale above, Where nought but shadowy forms was seen to move, As Idleness fancied in her dreaming mood; And up the hills on either side a wood The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow. A pleasing land of drowsihed it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eyes; 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 calm the 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 embow'ring 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 plac'd; and, to his lute, of cruel fate And labour harsh complain'd, lamenting man's estate. THOMSON. THE WEARISOMENESS OF WHAT IS COMMONLY CALLED A LIFE OF PLEASURE. THE spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns; Sweet smiles and bloom, less transient than her own. |