"If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Like thy own solemn springs, Thy springs and dying gales, O nymph reserv'd, while now the bright-haired sun Sits on yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed: Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'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 through thy darkling 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 and Elves Who slept in flow'rs the day, And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and lovelier still, The pensive Pleasures sweet Prepare thy shadowy car; Then lead, calm Votress, 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 lingering light; While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; Or Winter yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train, And rudely rends thy robes; So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed, Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipp'd Health, Thy gentlest influence own, And hymn thy favourite name." Hammond, whose poems are bound up with Collins's, in Bell's pocket edition, was a young gentleman, who appears to have fallen in love about the year 1740, and who translated Tibullus into English verse, to let his mistress and the public know of it.