If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, O pensive Eve, to sooth thine ear
Like thy own modest springs,
Thy springs, and dying gales;
O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,
Now air is hushed, 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 softened 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 let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.
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 discovered spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.
While Spring shall pour his showers, 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, regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy favourite name!
To fair Fidele's grassy tomb
Soft maids and village hinds shall bring
Each opening sweet, of earliest bloom,
And rifle all the breathing spring.
No wailing ghost shall dare appear,
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove,
But shepherd lads assemble here,
And melting virgins own their love.
No withered witch shall here be seen,
No goblins lead their nightly crew;
The female fays shall haunt the green,
And dress thy grave with pearly dew!
The redbreast oft at evening hours,
Shall kindly lend his little aid,
With hoary moss, and gathered flowers,
To deck the ground where thou art laid.
When howling winds and beating rain,
In tempests shake the sylvan cell,
Or midst the chace on every plain,
The tender thought on thee shall dwell:
Each lonely scene shall thee restore,
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Beloved, till life can charm no more;
And mourned, till pity's self be dead.
ODE ON THE DEATH OF THOMSON.
In yonder grave a Druid lies,
Where slowly winds the stealing wave!
The year's best sweets shall duteous rise,
To deck its poet's sylvan grave.
In yon deep bed of whispering reeds.
His airy harp shall now be laid,
That he whose heart in sorrow bleeds,
May love through life the soothing shade.
Then maids and youths shall linger here,
And while its sounds at distance swell,
Shall sadly seem in pity's ear
To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell.
Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore,
When Thames in summer wreaths is drest.
And oft suspend the dashing oar,
To bid his gentle spirit rest!
And oft as ease and health retire,
To breezy lawn or forest deep,
The friend shall view yon whitening spire,
And mid the varied landscape weep.
But thou who own'st that earthly bed,
Ah! what will every dirge avail!
Or tear which love and pity shed,
That mourn beneath the gliding sail!
Yet lives there one whose heedless eye
Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near?
With him, sweet bard! may fancy die,
And joy desert the blooming year.
But thou lorn stream, whose sullen tide
No sedge-crowned sisters now attend,
Now waft me from the green hill's side,
Whose cold turf hides the buried friend!
And see the fairy valleys fade,
Dun night has veiled the solemn view!
Yet once again, dear parted shade,
Meek nature's child, again adieu!
The genial meads, assigned to bless
Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom!
There hinds and shepherd girls shall dress
With simple hands thy rural tomb.
Long, long thy stone and pointed clay
Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes,
Oh! vales and wild woods, shall he say,
In yonder grave your Druid lies.
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