Though taste, though genius bless To some divine excess, Faint’s the cold work till thou inspire the whole; What each, what all supply, May court, may charm our eye, Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul! Of these let others ask, To aid some mighty task, I only seek to find thy temperate vale; Where oft my reed might sound To maids and shepherds round, And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale. _458._ _How sleep the Brave_ How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By all their country’s wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallow’d mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall awhile repair To dwell, a weeping hermit, there! _459._ _Ode to Evening_ 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 reserved, while now the bright-hair’d sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede ethereal wove, O’erhang his wavy bed: Now air is hush’d, save where the weak-eyed 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 composed, To breathe some soften’d strain, Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit, As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return! For when thy folding-star arising shows His paly circlet, at his warning lamp The fragrant hours, and elves Who slept in buds the day, And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still, The pensive pleasures sweet, Prepare thy shadowy car: Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow’d pile, Or upland fallows grey Reflect its last cool gleam. Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, Prevent 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;