And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;

Then the hurry and alarm

When the bee-hive casts its swarm;

Acorns ripe down-pattering

While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;

Every thing is spoilt by use;

Where's the cheek that doth not fade, Too much gazed at? Where's the maid Whose lip mature is ever new?

Where's the eye, however blue,

Doth not weary
One would meet in every place?
Where's the voice, however soft,
One would hear so very oft?

? Where's the face

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind:
Dulcet-eved as Ceres' daughter

Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;

With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe's, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down.
Fell her kirtle to her feet,
While she held the goblet sweet,

And Jove grew languid.—Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash;

Quickly break her prison-string,

And such joys as these she'll bring.

Let the winged Fancy roam,

Pleasure never is at home.

ODE.

BARDS of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new ?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wondrous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns

Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daises are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, tranced thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again ; And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you, Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber'd, never cloying. Here, your earth-born souls still speak To mortals, of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights; Of their passions and their spites; Of their glory and their shame; What doth strengthen and what maim. Thus ye teach us, every day, Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new!

21

TO AUTUMN.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness! a
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-

eaves run;

d

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, c
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel

shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy) cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad

find may

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy

hook

d