Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead,
And thro' the saddened grove, where scarce is heard
One dying strain, to chear the woodman's toil.
Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint;
Far, in faint warblings, thro' the tawny copse,
While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks,
And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late
Swell'd all the music of the swarming shades,
Robb'd of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit
On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock;
With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes,
And nought save chattering discord in their note.
O let not, aim'd from some inhuman eye,
The gun the music of the coming year
Destroy; and harmless, unsuspecting harm,
Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey,
In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground!
The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf
Incessant rustles from the mournful grove;
Oft startling such as, studious, walk below,
And slowly circles thro' the waving air.
But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams;
Till choak'd, and matted with the dreary shower,
The forest-walks, at every rising gale,
Roll wide the wither'd waste, and whistle bleak.
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields;
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their sunny robes resign. Even what remain'd
Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree;
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around The desolated prospect thrills the soul.
He comes! he comes! in every breeze the POWER Of PHILOSOPHIC MELANCHOLY comes!
His near approach the sudden-starting tear,
The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air,
The softened feature, and the beating heart,
Pierc'd deep with many a virtuous pang, declare!
O'er all the soul his sacred influence breathes;
Inflames imagination; thro' the breast
Infuses every tenderness; and far
Beyond dim earth exalts the swelling thought.
Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, such
As never mingled with the vulgar dream,
Croud fast into the Minds creative eye.
As fast the correspondent passions rise,
As varied, and as high: Devotion rais'd
To rapture, and divine astonishment;
The love of Nature unconfin'd, and, chief,
Of human race; the large ambitious wish,
To make them blest; the sigh for suffering worth
Lost in obscurity; the noble scorn
Of tyrant-pride; the fearless great resolve;
The wonder which the dying patriot draws,
Inspiring glory thro' remotest time;
Th' awakened throb for virtue, and for fame;
The sympathies of love, and friendship dear;
With all the social offspring of the heart.
Oh bear me then to vast embowring shades,
To twilight groves, and visionary vales;
To weeping grottoes, and prophetic glooms;
Where angel forms athwart the solemn dusk,
Tremendous sweep, or seem to sweep along;
And voices more than human, thro' the void
Deep-sounding, seize th' enthusiastic ear!
Or is this gloom too much? Then lead, ye powers,
That o'er the garden and the rural seat
Preside, which shining thro' the chearful land
In countless numbers blest BRITANNIA sees;
O lead me to the wide-extended walks,
The fair majestic paradise of STOWE (1)!
Not Persian Cyrus on Ionia's shore
E'er saw such silvan scenes; such various art
By genius fir'd, such ardent genius tam'd
By cool judicious art; that, in the strife,
All-beauteous Nature fears to be outdone.
And there, Q PITT, thy country's early boast,
There let me sit beneath the sheltered slopes,
Or in that (2) Temple where, in future times,
Thou well shalt merit a distinguish'd name;
And, with thy converse blest, catch the last smiles
Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods.
While there with thee th' inchanted round I walk,
The regulated wild, gay Fancy then
Will tread in thought the groves of Attic Land;
Will from thy standard taste refine her own,
Correct her pencil to the purest truth
Of Nature, or, the unimpassion'd shades
Forsaking, raise it to the human mind.
(1) The seat of the Lord Viscount Cobham.
(2) The Temple of Virtue in Stowe-Gardens.
Or if hereafter she, with juster hand,
Shall draw the tragic scene, instruct her thou,
To mark the varied movements of the heart,
What every decent character requires,
And every passion speaks : 0 thro' her strain
Breathe thy pathetic eloquence! that moulds
Th' attentive senate, charms, persuades, exalts,
Of honest zeal th' indignant lightning throws;
And shakes corruption on her venal throne.
While thus we talk, and thro' Elysian Vales
Delighted rove, perhaps a sigh escapes :
What pity, COBHAM, thou thy verdant files
Of ordered trees should here inglorious range,
Instead of squadrons flaming o'er the field,
And long embattled hosts! when the proud foe
The faithless vain disturber of mankind,
Insulting Gaul, has rous'd the world to war;
When keen, once more, within their bounds to press
Those polish'd robbers, those ambitious slaves,
The BRITISH YOUTH would hail thy wise command,
Thy temper'd ardor and thy veteran skill.
The western sun withdraws the shortened day;
And humid evening, gliding o'er the sky,
In her chill progress, to the ground condens'd
The vapours throws. Where creeping waters ooze,
Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind,
Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along
The dusky mantled lawn. Mean-while the moon
Full-orb'd, and breaking thro' the scatter'd clouds,
Shews her broad visage in the crimson'd east.
Turn'd to the sun direct, her spotted disk,
Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend,
And caverns deep, as optic tube descries,
A smaller earth, gives us his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
Now thro' the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild
O'er the sky'd mountain to the shadowy vale,
While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam,
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide
Of silver radiance, trembling round the world.
But when half blotted from the sky her light,
Fainting, permits the starry fires to burn
With keener lustre thro' the depth of heaven;
Or near extinct her deadened orb appears,
of sickly beamless white;
Oft in this season,
silent from the north
A blaze of meteors shoots : ensweeping first
The lower skies, they all at once converge
High to the crown of heaven, and all at once
Relapsing quick, as quickly reascend,
And mix, and thwart, extinguish, and renew,
All ether coursing in a maze of light.
From look to look contagious thro' the crowd;
The panic runs, and into wondrous shapes
Th' appearance throws: Armies in meet array,
Throng'd with aërial spears, and steeds of fire;
Till the long lines of full-extended war
In bleeding fight commixt, the sanguine flood
Rolls a broad slaughter o'er the plains of heaven.
As thus they scan the visionary scene,
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