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KENSINGTON GARDEN.
And as he saw the desolated wood,And the dark den where once his empire stood,Grief chill'd his heart: to his half-open'd eyesIn every oak a Neptune seem'd to rise:He fled and left, with all his trembling peers,The long possession of a thousand years. Through bush, through brake, through groves, and gloomy dales,Through dank and dry, o'er streams and flowery vales,Direct they fled; but often look'd behind,And stopp'd and started at each rustling wind.Wing'd with like fear his abdicated bands,Disperse and wander into different lands,Part did beneath the Peaks deep caverns lie,In silent glooms impervious to the sky;Part on fair Avons margin seek repose,[1]Whose stream o'er Britains midinost region flows,Where formidable Neptune never came,And seas and oceans are but known by fame:Some to dark woods and secret shades retreat,And some on mountains choose their airy seat.
- ↑ "Thou soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver streamOf things more than mortal thy Shakspeare would dream:The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed,For hallow'd the turf is which pillow'd his head."Garrick.
