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XLIV

And hither Morpheus sent his kindest dreams,
Raising a world of gayer tinct and grace;

O'er which were shadowy cast elysian gleams,
That played, in waving lights, from place to place,
And shed a roseate smile on nature's face.
Not Titian's pencil e'er could so array,

So fleece with clouds the pure ethereal space;
Ne could it e'er such melting forms display,
As loose on flowery beds all languishingly lay.

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RULE, BRITANNIA!

WHEN Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of the land,

And guardian angels sung this strain: "Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;

Britons never will be slaves."

ΤΟ

The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,

The dread and envy of them all.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful from each foreign stroke;

As the loud blast that tears the skies

Serves but to root thy native oak. "Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves."

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,

But work their woe, and thy renown. "Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves."

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WILLIAM COLLINS

ODE TO EVENING

IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales,

50 nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat 10 With short, shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing; Or where the beetle winds

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His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,

Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:

Now teach me, maid composed,

To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May, not unseemly, with its stillness suit,

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp

The fragrant hours, and elves

Who slept in flowers the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with

sedge,

And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive pleasures sweet
Prepare thy shadowy car.

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Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile,
Or upland fallows grey
Reflect its last cool gleam.

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But when chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut,

That from the mountain's side,

Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires;
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,

And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest eve!

While summer loves to sport

Beneath thy lingering light;

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45 While sallow autumn fills thy lap with leaves; Or winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes:

So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed, 50 Shall fancy, friendship, science, rose-lipped health, Thy gentlest influence own, And hymn thy favourite name!

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ΤΟ

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ODE TO FEAR

THOU, to whom the world unknown,
With all its shadowy shapes, is shown;
Who seest, appalled, the unreal scene,
While fancy lifts the veil between :

Ah fear! ah frantic fear!

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I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye!
Like thee I start; like thee disordered fly.
For lo, what monsters in thy train appear!
Danger, whose limbs of giant mould
What mortal eye can fixed behold?
Who stalks his round, an hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight storm;
Or throws him on the ridgy steep

Of some loose hanging rock to sleep:

And with him thousand phantoms joined,

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