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Where Love and Lore may claim alternate hours,
With Peace embosom'd in Idalian bow'rs!
Remote from busy Life's bewilder'd way,
O'er all his heart shall Taste and Beauty sway!
Free on the sunny slope, or winding shore,
With hermit steps to wander and adore!
There shall he love, when genial morn appears,
Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears,
To watch the bright'ning roses of the sky,
And muse on Nature with a poet's eye!—
And, when the sun's last splendour lights the deep,
The woods, and waves, and murm'ring winds asleep;
When fairy harps th' Hesperian planet hail,
And the lone cuckoo sighs along the vale,
His path shall be where streamy mountains swell
Their shadowy grandeur o'er the narrow dell,
Where mouldering piles and forests intervene,
Mingling with darker tints the living green;
No circling hills his ravish'd eye to bound,
Heaven, Earth, and Ocean, blazing all around!
The moon is up—the watch-tow'r dimly burns—
And down the vale his sober step returns;
But pauses oft, as winding rocks convey
The still sweet fall of Music far away;
And oft he lingers from his home awhile
To watch the dying notes!—and start, and smile!
Let Winter come! Let polar spirits sweep
The dark'ning world, and tempest-troubled deep!
Though boundless snows the wither'd heath deform,
And the dim sun scarce wanders through the storm;
Yet shall the smile of social love repay,
With mental light, the melancholy day!
With Peace embosom'd in Idalian bow'rs!
Remote from busy Life's bewilder'd way,
O'er all his heart shall Taste and Beauty sway!
Free on the sunny slope, or winding shore,
With hermit steps to wander and adore!
There shall he love, when genial morn appears,
Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears,
To watch the bright'ning roses of the sky,
And muse on Nature with a poet's eye!—
And, when the sun's last splendour lights the deep,
The woods, and waves, and murm'ring winds asleep;
When fairy harps th' Hesperian planet hail,
And the lone cuckoo sighs along the vale,
His path shall be where streamy mountains swell
Their shadowy grandeur o'er the narrow dell,
Where mouldering piles and forests intervene,
Mingling with darker tints the living green;
No circling hills his ravish'd eye to bound,
Heaven, Earth, and Ocean, blazing all around!
The moon is up—the watch-tow'r dimly burns—
And down the vale his sober step returns;
But pauses oft, as winding rocks convey
The still sweet fall of Music far away;
And oft he lingers from his home awhile
To watch the dying notes!—and start, and smile!
Let Winter come! Let polar spirits sweep
The dark'ning world, and tempest-troubled deep!
Though boundless snows the wither'd heath deform,
And the dim sun scarce wanders through the storm;
Yet shall the smile of social love repay,
With mental light, the melancholy day!
