What pleasing themes thy page adorn, The ruddy streaks of cheerful morn, The pastoral pipe, the ode sublime, And Melancholy's mournful chime! Each with unwonted graces shines In thy ever lovely lines. Thy muse deserves the lasting meed; Attuning sweet the Dorian reed, Now the lovelorn swain complains, And sings his sorrows to the plains; Now the sylvan scenes appear Through all the changes of the year; Or the elegiac strain Softly sings of mental pain, And mournful diapasons sail On the faintly dying gale. But, ah! the soothing scene is o'er, On middle flight we cease to soar, For now the muse assumes a bolder sweep, Strikes on the lyric string her sorrows deep, In strains unheard before. Now, now the rising fire thrills high, Now, now to heaven's high realms we fly, And every throne explore: The soul entranced, on mighty wings, With all the poet's heat upsprings, And loses earthly woes; Till all alarm'd at the giddy height, The Muse descends on gentler flight, And lulls the wearied soul to soft repose. FRAGMENT. The western gale, Mild as the kisses of connubial love, Plays round my languid limbs, as all dissolved, Beneath the ancient elm's fantastic shade I lie, exhausted with the noontide heat: While rippling o'er its deep worn pebble bed, The rapid rivulet rushes at my feet, Dispensing coolness. On the fringed marge Full many a floweret rears its head,--or pink, Or gaudy daffodil. 'Tis here, at noon, The buskin'd wood-nymphs from the heat retire, And lave them in the fountain; here secure From Pan, or savage satyr, they disport: Or stretch'd supinely on the velvet turf, Lull'd by the laden bee, or sultry fly, Invoke the god of slumber.... * * * * * And, hark! how merrily, from distant tower, Ring round the village bells! now on the gale They rise with gradual swell, distinct and loud; Anon they die upon the pensive ear, Melting in faintest music. They bespeak A day of jubilee, and oft they bear, Commix'd along the unfrequented shore, The sound of village dance and tabor loud, Startling the musing ear of Solitude. Such is the jocund wake of Whitsuntide, When happy Superstition, gabbling eld! Holds her unhurtful gambols. All the day The rustic revellers ply the mazy dance On the smooth shaven green, and then at eve Commence the harmless rites and auguries; And many a tale of ancient days goes round. They tell of wizard seer, whose potent spells Could hold in dreadful thrall the labouring moon, Or draw the fix'd stars from their eminence, And still the midnight tempest. Then anon Tell of uncharnel'd spectres, seen to glide Along the lone wood's unfrequented path, Startling the 'nighted traveller; while the sound Of undistinguished murmurs, heard to come From the dark centre of the deepening glen, Struck on his frozen ear.