Most favour'd; who with voice articulate
Should lead the chorus of this lower world?
Shall he, so soon forgetful of the hand
That hush'd the thunder, and serenes the sky, 1235
Extinguish'd feel that spark the tempest wak'd,
That sense of powers exceeding far his own,
Ere yet his feeble heart has lost its fears?
Chear'd by the milder beam, the sprightly youth
Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal depth 1240
A sandy bottom shews. A while he stands
Gazing th' inverted landskip, half-afraid
To meditate the blue profound below;
Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.
His ebon tresses, and his rosy cheek 1245
Instant emerge; and thro' the obedient wave,
At each short breathing by his lip repell'd,
With arms and legs according well, he makes,
As humour leads, an easy-winding path;
While, from his polish'd sides, a dewy light1250
Effuses on the pleas'd spectators round.
This is the purest exercise of health,
The kind refresher of the summer-heats;
Nor, when cold Winter keens the brightening flood,
Would I weak-shivering linger on the brink. 1255
Thus life redoubles, and is oft preserv'd,
By the bold swimmer, in the swift illapse
Of accident disastrous. Hence the limbs
Knit into force; and the same Roman arm,
That rose victorious o'er the conquer'd earth, 1260
First learn'd, while tender, to subdue the wave.
Even, from the body's purity, the mind
Receives a secret sympathetic aid.
Close in the covert of an hazel copse,
Where winded into pleasing solitudes 1265
Runs
