No creeping flames your hives annoy, Nor music lures you to destroy.
You too, ye feather'd tribes of air, The same security shall share; Here shall dread no secret net Mid the thorny thicket set;
Nor kites nor hawks, a bloody throng, Nor griping vulture's talon strong, Who, taught by man, with rage refined, Devour their own devoted kind. Say, silvan quire, what dire offence Hath stain'd your native innocence, That danger thus, with ceaseless course, Pursues your flight, your haunts explores? Oft have I seen your callow care Hard-struggling in the birdlime snare: So the rash youth, in grief I said, If once the path of vice he tread, Caught in the toils of treachery, In vain long labours to be free: But ne'er hath pride your minds possess'd, Harmless offspring of the nest,
Nor folly e'er your hearts beguiled, Nor guilt disgraced your manners mild, Which still to active instinct true Kind Nature's simple paths pursue. Nor these the only ills you bear, Winged inhabitants of air :
From danger and from death you fly, Alas! to loss of liberty;
Condemn'd to leave your native groves, Unfinish'd songs, and feather'd loves; Condemn'd to change your airy downs For busy streets of peopled towns:
Long, long the drooping captive dwells In cruel cages, grated cells; Oft wishful views some distant tree, And pants and flutters to be free; With grief and rage would fain expire, And leaves a plume on every wire.
TO THE SPIRIT OF FRESHNESS.
O THOU, the daughter of the Vernal Dew, That, glistering to the morn with pearly light, The gentle Aura woo'd Beside a dripping cave;
There, midst the blush of roses, won the nymph To dalliance, as in sighs she whisper'd love; There saw thee born, as May Unclosed her laughing eye;
Spirit of Freshness, hail! At this dim hour While, streak'd with recent gray, the dawn ap- Where sport thy humid steps, Ambrosial essence, say?
Haply, thy slippers glance along my path Where frosted lilies veil their silver bells Beneath the lively green
Of their full-shading leaves.
Or dost thou wander in the hoary field Where, overhead, I view the cautious hare Nibbling, while stillness reigns, The light-sprent barley blade?
Or dost thou hover o'er the hawthorn bloom, Where, in his nest of clay, the blackbird opes His golden lids, and tunes
A soft preluding strain;
Or art thou soaring mid the fleeced air
To meet the dayspring, where the plume-wet lark Pours sudden his shrill note
Beneath a dusky cloud?
I see thee not-But lo! a vapoury shape That oft belies thy form, emerging slow From that deep central gloom, Rests on the moon-tipp'd wood.
Now, by a halo circled, sails along, As gleams with icicles his azure vest, Now shivers on the trees,
And feebly sinks from sight.
'Tis cold! and lo! upon the whitening folds Of the dank mist that fills the hollow dell, Chill Damp with drizzly locks
Glides in his lurid car,
Where a lone fane o'er those broad rushes nods In slumberous torpor; save when flitting bat Stirs the rank ivy brown
That clasps its oozing walls!
Yet, yet, descending from yon eastern tent Whose amber seems to kiss the wavy plain, A form, half viewless, spreads
A flush purpureal round.
I know thee, Freshness! Lo! delicious green Sprinkles thy path. The bursting buds above With vivid moisture glow,
To mark thy gradual way.
The florets, opening, from their young cups dart The carmine blush, the yellow lustre clear: And now entranced I drink
Thy breath in living balms!
And not a ryegrass trembles, but it gives A scent salubrious: not a flower exhales Its odours, but it breathes
O'er all a cool repose.
Mild shadowy power! whilst now thy tresses, bathed
In primrose tints, the snowdrop's coldness shed On skyblue hyacinths,
Thy chaste and simple wreath;
While flows to Zephyr thy transparent robe, Stealing the colours of the lunar bow, How short thy vestal reign
Yes! if thou mix the saffron hues that stream From the bright orient with the roscid rays Of yonder orb that hangs A silvery drop on high;
Or if thou love, along the lucent sod, To catch the sparkles of thy modest star; With all the mingled beams Heightening some virgin's bloom;
Fleet as the shadow from the breded heaven Brushing the gossamer, thy steps retire Within the gelid gloom
Of thy green-vested oak.
There, as its ambient arch with airy sweep Chequers the ground, thine eyes of dewy light' Pursue the turf that floats
In many a tremulous wave.
And now, retreating to the breezy marge Of the pure stream, thy ruby fingers rear The new-blown flowers that wake
To tinge its crystal tide:
Or gently on thine alabaster urn
Thy head reclines, beneath some aged beech That mid the crisped brook
Steeps its long-wreathed roots.
While from the cave where first thine essence
Where the chaste Naiads ranged their glittering Rills, trickling through the moss,
Purl o'er the pebbled floor.
There sleep till eve; as now the tyrant heat Kindles, with rapid strides, the' extensive lawn, And e'en thy favourite haunt, The verdurous oak, invades.
And may no vapours from that osier'd bank Annoy thee thou, whose delicacy dreads, Though shrinking from the sun,
The sallow's stagnant shade.
There sleep till eve; unless the spring-loved showers,
Pattering among the foliage, bid thee rise To taste those transient blooms
That with the rainbow live.
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