And slowly mellowing into age,
When fate extends its gathering gripe,
Fall off like fruit grown fully ripe:
Quit a worn being without pain,
In hope to blossom soon again.

CHAP. VII.

Grongar Hill.

SILENT
ILENT nymph with curious eye!
Who, the purple ev'ning, lie
On the mountain's lonely van
Beyond the noise of busy man,
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings;
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale;
Come with all thy various hues
Come and aid thy sister muse:
Now while Phoebus riding high
Gives lustre to the land and sky!
Grongar hill invites my song,
Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells
Sweetly musing Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,
Sat upon a flow'ry bed,

With my hand beneath my head;

GREEN.

While stray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood,
Over mead, and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill,
Till Contemplation had her fill.

About his chequer'd sides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind;
And groves and grottoes where I lay,
And vistoes shooting beams of day;
Wide and wider spreads the vale;

As cireles on a smooth canal;

The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later of all height!

Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen, as the others rise!
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly risen hill.
Now I gain the mountains brow;
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene,
For the gay, the open scene
Does the face of nature show,
In all the hues of heaver's bow!
And swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.
Old castles on the cliffs arise
Proudly tow'ring in the skies!
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires!
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain heads!
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks!
Below me trees unnumber'd rise,
Beautiful in various dyes;

The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir, that taper grows,
The sturdy oak, with broad-spread boughs;
And beyond, the purple grove,

Haunt of Phillis, queen of Love!
Gaudy as the op'ning dawn,

Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill steep and high,
Holds and charms the wand'ring eye;
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,
His sides are eloth'd with waving wood,
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;

Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps ;
And with her arın from falling keeps;
So both a safety from the wind
One mutual dependance find.

Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
Tis now th' appartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds;
And there the pois'nous adder breeds,
Conceal'd in ruins, moss, and weeds:
While, ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls.
Yet time has been that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow
Has seen this broken pile complete
Big with the vanity of state;
But transient is the smile of fate;
A little rule a little sway,
A sun-beam in a winter's day
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.
And see the rivers how they run,
Through woods and meads, in shade and sun,
Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
Wave succeeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life to endless sleep!
Thus is nature's vesture wrought
To instruct our wand'ring thought;
Thus she dresses green and gay,
To disperse our cares away.
Ever charming, ever new,

9

When will the landscape tire the view!
The fountain's fall, the river's flow,
The woody vallies warm and low,
The windy summit wild and high
Roughly rushing on the sky,

The pleasant seat, the ruin'd tow'r,
The naked rock, the shady bow'r,
The town and village, dome and farm,
Each give each a double charm,
As pearls upon an AEthiop's arm,

}

:

See on the mountain's southern side,
Where the prospect open's wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide!
How close and small the hedges lie!
What streaks of meadow cross the eye!
A step methinks may pass the stream,
So little distant dangers seem;

So we mistake the future's face
Ey'd thro' Hope's deluding glass;
As yon summits soft and fair,
Clad in colours of the air,
Which to those who journey near
Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the same coarse way,
The present's still a cloudy day.
O may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see!
Content me with an humble shade
My passions' tam'd, any wishes laid;
For while our wishes wildly roll
We banish quiet from the soul:
'Tis thus the busy beat the air!
And misers gather wealth and care.
Now, ev'n now, my joys run high,
As on the mountain-turf I lie;
While the wanton Zephyr sings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep;
While the shepherd charms his sheep;
While the birds unbounded fly,
And with music fill the sky,
Now, ev'n now, my joys run high.

Be full, ye courts, be great who will, Search for peace with all your skill; Open wide the lofty door,

Seek her on the marble floor;

In vain you search, she is not there;
In vain ye search the domes of Care!
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain heads,
Along with pleasure close ally'd,

}

Ever by each other's side:
And often, by the murm'ring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still
Within the groves of Grongar-Hill.

CHAP. VIII.

Hymn to Adversity.

DAUGHTER

AUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,

Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain

The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, design'd,
To thee he gave the heav'nly birth,
And bade thee form her infant mind.
Stern, rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore,

What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

And from her own she learn'd to melt at other's woe.

Scar'd at thy frown terrific, ly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,

And leave us leisure to be good.

Light they disperse, and with them

go

The summer friend, the flatt'ring foe;

By vain prosperity receiv'd,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believ'd.

Wisdom in sable garb array'd,

Immers'd in rapt'rous thought profound

And Melancholy silent maid

With leaden eye, that loves the ground,