A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer sky: There eke the soft delights, that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh; But whate'er smacked of noyaunce, or unrest, Was far far off expelled from this delicious nest. (THOMSON: _The Castle of Indolence_, canto i. 1748.) Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, Emblem right meet of decency does yield: Her apron dyed in grain, as blue, I trowe, As is the hare-bell that adorns the field: And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield Tway birchen sprays, with anxious fear entwined, With dark distrust and sad repentance filled, And stedfast hate, and sharp affliction joined, And fury uncontrolled and chastisement unkind. (SHENSTONE: _The Schoolmistress._ 1742.) Thomson's _Castle of Indolence_, although not published till 1748, seems to have been written and circulated before Shenstone's _Schoolmistress_. Thomson caught the spirit of Spenser and his stanza better than any other imitator until the days of Keats. On the revival of the stanza at this period, see Beers's _English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century_, chap. iii., on "the Spenserians." Earliest of the group, according to Mr. Gosse, was Akenside's _Virtuoso_ (1737. See _Eighteenth Century Literature_, p. 311). O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! And oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle. (BURNS: _The Cotter's Saturday Night._ 1785.) I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand: I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles. (BYRON: _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto iv, st. i. 1818.) A casement high and triple-arch'd there was, All garlanded with carven imag'ries Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, And diamonded with panes of quaint device, Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings; And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.