And close, when Nature bids, at close of day. Here, at the dawn, the kindling landscape glows; There noon-day levees call from faint repose. Here the flush’d wave flings back the parting light; There glimmering lamps anticipate the night. When from his classic dreams the student steals,[3] Amid the buzz of crowds, the whirl of wheels, To muse unnotic’d—while around him press The meteor-forms of equipage and dress; Alone, in wonder lost, he seems to stand A very stranger in his native land! And (tho’ perchance of current coin possest, And modern phrase by living lips exprest) Like those blest Youths, forgive the fabling page,[j] Whose blameless lives deceiv’d a twilight age, Spent in sweet slumbers; till the miner’s spade Unclos’d the cavern, and the morning play’d. Ah, what their strange surprize, their wild delight! New arts of life, new manners meet their sight! In a new world they wake, as from the dead; Yet doubt the trance dissolv’d, the vision fled! O come, and, rich in intellectual wealth, Blend thought with exercise, with knowledge health! Long, in this shelter’d scene of letter’d talk, With sober step repeat the pensive walk; Nor scorn, when graver triflings fail to please, The cheap amusements of a mind at ease; Here every care in sweet oblivion cast, And many an idle hour—not idly pass’d. No tuneful echoes, ambush’d at my gate, Catch the blest accents of the wise and great.[k] Vain of its various page, no Album breathes The sigh that Friendship or the Muse bequeaths. Yet some good Genii o’er my hearth preside, Oft the far friend, with secret spell, to guide; And there I trace, when the grey evening lours, A silent chronicle of happier hours! When Christmas revels in a world of snow, And bids her berries blush, her carols flow; His spangling shower when Frost the wizard flings; Or, borne in ether blue, on viewless wings, O’er the white pane his silvery foliage weaves, And gems with icicles the sheltering eaves; —Thy muffled friend his nectarine-wall pursues, What time the sun the yellow crocus wooes, Screen’d from the arrowy North; and duly hies[4] To meet the morning-rumour as it flies; To range the murmuring market-place, and view The motley groups that faithful TENIERS drew. When Spring bursts forth in blossoms thro’ the vale, And her wild music triumphs on the gale, Oft with my book I muse from stile to stile;[5] Oft in my porch the listless noon beguile, Framing loose numbers, till declining day Thro’ the green trellis shoots a crimson ray; Till the West-wind leads on the twilight hours, And shakes the fragrant bells of closing flowers. Nor boast, O Choisy! seat of soft delight, The secret charm of thy voluptuous night. Vain is the blaze of wealth, the pomp of power! Lo, here, attendant on the shadowy hour, Thy closet-supper, serv’d by hands unseen, Sheds, like an evening-star, its ray serene,[l] To hail our coming. Not a step prophane Dares, with rude sound, the cheerful rite restrain;