Oh ever keep thy native ease, By no pedantic law confin'd! For LAURA's voice is form'd to please, NANCY NANCY of the VALE. A BL LA D. Nerine Galatea! thymo mihi dulcior Hybla! HE western fky was purpled o'er TH With every pleafing ray: And flocks reviving felt no more When from an hazle's artless bower Soft-warbled STREPHON'S tongue; "Let fops with fickle falfhood range The paths of wanton love, While weeping maids lament their change, And fadden every grove : But endless bleffings crown the day I faw fair ESHAM'S dale! And every bleffing find its way TO NANCY of the Vale. 'Twas 'Twas from AVONA's banks the maid Diffus'd her lovely beams; And every fhining glance difplay'd The naiad of the streams. Soft as the wild-duck's tender young, Fresh as the bordering flowers, her bloom: Was never half fo blue. Her fhape was like the reed fo fleek, So taper, ftrait, and fair; Her dimpled fmile, her blushing cheek, Far in the winding Vale retir'd, This peerless bud I found; And fhadowing rocks, and woods confpir'd To fence her beauties round. That nature in fo lone a dell Should form a nymph fo fweet! Or fortune to her fecret cell Conduct my wandering feet! Gay Gay lordlings fought her for their bride, "Prove to your equals true, fhe cry'd, 'Tis STREPHON, on the mountain's brow, To him I gave my plighted vow, Struck with her charms and gentle truth, To her alone I gave my youth, And when this vow fhall faithlefs prove," The ftream that faw our tender love, ODE ODE to INDOLENCE, 1750. A H! why for ever on the wing Thus the poor bird, that draws his name Lo! on the rural moffy bed My limbs with careless eafe reclin'd; For why should lingering thought invade, Lov'ft thou yon calm and filent flood, From each tempeftuous wind that blows? |