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ODE TO EVENING

IF ought of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to sooth thy modest

ear,

Like thy own solemn springs, Thy springs and dying gales,

O nymph reserv'd, while now the brighthair'd sun

Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With brede ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, save where the weakey'd bat,

With short shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing,

Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid compos'd,
To breathe some soften'd strain,

Whose numbers, stealing thro' thy dark'ning vale

May not unseemly with its stillness suit, As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial lov'd return!

For when thy folding-star arising shews
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp.
The fragrant Hours, the elves
Who slept in flow'rs the day,

And many a nymph who wreaths her brows with sedge,

And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and, lovelier still

The pensive Pleasures sweet,
Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then lead, calm vot'ress, where some

sheety lake

Cheers the lone heath, or some time

hallow'd pile

Or upland fallows grey

Reflect its last cool gleam.

But when chill blust'ring winds, or driving rain,

Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut
That from the mountain's side
Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires,

And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his show'rs, as oft he wont,

And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest
Eve;

While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy ling'ring light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;

Or Winter, yelling thro' the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,
And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed,

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, roselipp'd Health,

The gentlest influence own,
And hymn thy fav'rite name!

ODE TO SIMPLICITY

O THOU, by nature taught
To breathe her genuine thought,
In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly
strong;

Who first, on mountains wild,
In fancy, loveliest child,

Thy babe, or pleasure's, nursed the powers of song!

Thou, who, with hermit heart,
Disdain'st the wealth of art,

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall;

But com'st a decent maid,

In Attic robe arrayed,

O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I

call;

By all the honeyed store On Hybla's thymy shore;

By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear;

By her whose lovelorn woe,

In evening musings slow, Soothed sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear:

By old Cephisus deep,

Who spread his wavy sweep,

In warbled wanderings, round thy green retreat;

On whose enameled side,

When holy freedom died,

No equal haunt allured thy future feet.

O sister meek of truth, To my admiring youth, Thy sober aid and native charms infuse! The flowers that sweetest breathe, Though beauty culled the wreath, Still ask thy hand to range their ordered hues.

While Rome could none esteem

But virtue's patriot theme,

I only seek to find thy temperate vale;
Where oft my reed might sound
To maids and shepherds round,
And all thy sons, O nature, learn my

JOHN DYER

GRONGAR HILL

SILENT nymph, with curious eye,
Who, the purple evening, lie
On 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 nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale;
Come, with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy sister muse;
Now, while Phoebus, riding high,
Gives luster to the land and sky!
Grongar Hill invites my song,

tale.

Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells,
Sweetly musing, Quiet dwells;

You loved her hills, and led their laureat Grongar, in whose silent shade,

band:

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For the modest Muses made;
So oft I have, the evening still,

At the fountain of a rill,

Sat 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 checkered sides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behi d,
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 scene,
Does 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 spires
Seem from hence ascending fires!
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On 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 Phyllis, queen of love!
Gaudy as the opening dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,

On 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 wind
On mutual dependence find.
'Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
'Tis now the apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds,
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds;
WWhile, ever and anon, there falls
Hugh 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 mighy have

Between the cradle and the grave.
And see the rivers, how they run

Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
Wave succeeding wave, they go
A 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 give each a double charm.
As pearls upon an Æthiop'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 fair,
Clad 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,

Through woods and meads, in shade and sun, 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 you search, she is not there;
In vain you 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.

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While some on earnest business bent Their murm'ring labours ply

'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint

To sweeten liberty;

Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,

And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,

Less pleasing when possessed; The tear forgot as soon as shed,

The sunshine of the breast: Theirs buxom health of rosy hue, Wild wit, invention ever-new,

And lively cheer of vigour born; The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly the approach of morn.

Alas, regardless of their doom,

The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see how all around 'em wait
The Ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah, show them where in ambush stand To seize their prey the murth'rous band! Ah, tell them, they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,

That inly gnaws the secret heart, And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged, comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,

To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' altered eye,

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