Each native charm their steps explore
Of Solitude's fequefter'd ftore.

For them the moon with cloudlefs ray
Mounts, to illume their homeward way:
Their weary fpirits to relieve,

The meadows incenfe breathe at eve,
No riot mars the fimple fare

That o'er a glimm'ring hearth they fhare:
But when the curfeu's meafur'd roar
Duly, the dark ning valleys o'er,
Has echo'd from the distant town,
They with no beds of cygnet-down,
No trophied canopies, to clofe
Their drooping eyes in quick repofe.
Their little fons, who fpread the bloom
Of health around the clay-built room,
Or thro' the primros'd coppice ftray,
Or gambol in the new-mown hay;
Or quaintly braid the cowflip-twine,
Or drive afield the tardy kine;
Or haften from the fultry hill
To loiter at the fhady rill;

Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest
To rob the raven's ancient neft.

Their humble porch with honeyed flow'rs
The curling woodbine's thade embow'rs:
From the trim garden's thymy mound
Their bees in bufy fwarms refound:
Nor fell Difeafe, before his time,
Haftes to confume life's golden prime :
But when their temples long have wore
The filver crown of treffes hoar;
As ftudious ftill calm peace to keep,
Beneath a flow'ry turf tey fleep.

$64. Ode. The First of April. T. WARTON. WITH dalliance rude young Zephyr woos Coy May. Full oft with kind excufe

The boift'rous boy the Fair denies,
Or with a fcornful fiile complies.

Mindful of difafter past,

And shrinking at the northern blaft,
The fleety ftorm returning ftill,
The morning hoar and ev'ning chill;
Reluctant comes the timid Spring.
Scarce a bee, with airy ring,
Murmurs the bloffom'd boughs around,
That clothe the garden's fouthern bound:
Scarce a fickly ftraggling flow'r
Decks the rough caftle's rifted tow'r :
Scarce the hardy primrofe peeps
From the dark dell's entangled fteeps:
O'er the field of waving broom
Slowly fhoots the golden bloom:
And, but by fits, the furze-clad dale
Tinctures the transitory gale:

While from the fhrubb'ry's naked maze,
Where the vegetable blaze

Of Flora's brighteft 'broidery fhone,
Ev'ry chequer'd charm is flown;
Save that the lilac hangs to view
Its bursting gems in clufters blue.

Scant along the ridgy land

The beans their new-born ranks expand;

The fresh-turn'd foil with tender blades
Thinly the fprouting barley fhades:
Fringing the foreft's devious edge,
Half rob'd appears the hawthorn hedge:
Or to the distant eye displays
Weakly green its budding sprays.
The fwallow, for a moment feen,
Skims in hafte the village green :
From the grey moor, on feeble wing,
The fcreaming plovers idly spring
The butterfly, gay-painted foon,
Explores while the tepid noon,
And fondly trufts its tender dies
To fickle funs and flatt'ring kies.
Fraught with a tranfient, frozen fhow'r
If a cloud fhould haply lowr,
Sailing o'er the landscape dark,
Mute on a fudden is the lark;
But when gleams the fun again
O'er the pearl-befprinkled plain,
And from behind his wat'iy veil
Looks through the thin-defcending hail,
She mounts, and, lefl'ning to the fight,
Salutes the blythe return of light,
And high her tuneful track pursues
Mid the dim rainbow's fcatter'd hues.
Where in venerable rows
Widely waving oaks inclofe
The moat of yonder antique hall,
Swarm the rooks with clamorous call;
And, to the toils of nature true,
Wreath their capacions nefts anew.

Mufing through the lawny park,
The lonely poet loves to mark
How various greens in faint degrees
Tinge the tall groupes of various trees:
While, careless of the changing year,
The pine cerulean, never fear,
Towers diftinguish'd from the reft,
And proudly vaunts her winter veft.

Within fome whispering ofier isle,
Where Glym's low banks neglected fmile;
And each trim meadow ftill retains
The wint'ry torrent's oozy ftains:
Beneath a willow, long forfook,
The fifher feeks his cuftom'd nook;
And bursting thro' the crackling fedge
That crowns the current's cavern'd edge,
He startles from the bordering wood
The bafhful wild-duck's carly brood.

O'er the broad downs, a novel race,
Frisk the lambs, with faltering pace,
And with eager bleatings fill
The fofs that fkirts the beacon'd hill.

His free-born vigour yet unbroke
To lordly man's ufurping yoke,
The bounding colt forgets to play :
Basking beneath the noontide ray,
And ftretch'd among the daifies pride
Of a green dingle's floping fide :

While far bencath, where nature spreads
Her boundless length of level meads,
In loofe luxuriance taught to stray

A thoufand tumbling rills inlay

$65. Ode. The Suicide. T. WARTON.
BENEATH the beech, whofe branches bare
Smit with the lightning's vivid glare,
O'erhang the craggy road,
And whistle hollow as they wave;
Within a folitary grave,

A wretched Suicide holds his accurs'd abode.
Lowr'd the grim morn, in murky dics
Damp mifts involv'd the fcowling fkies,
And dimm'd the ftruggling day;
As by the brook that ling ring laves
Yon rufh-grown moor with fable waves,
Full of the dark refolve he took his fullen
I mark'd his defultory pace,

His geftures ftrange, and varying face,
With many a mutter'd found;

And ah! too late aghaft I view'd
The reeking blade, the hand embru'd :

way.

Hle fell, and groaning grafp'd in agony the ground. Full many a melancholy night

He watch'd the flow return of light;

And fought the pow'rs of sleep,

To fpread a momentary calm
O'er his fad couch, and in the balm

Of bland oblivion's dews his burning eyes to steep.
Full oft, unknowing and unknown,
He wore his endless noons alone,

Amid th'autumnal wood:
Oft was he wont, in hafty fit,
Abrupt the focial board to quit,

And gazewith eagerglance upon the tumblingflood.
Beck'ning the wretch to torments new,
Defpair, for ever in his view,

A fpectre pale, appear'd;
While, as the fhades of eve arofe
And brought the day's unwelcome clofe,

More horrible and huge her giant-shape she rear'd.
"Is this," miîtaken Scorn will cry,
"Is this the youth, whofe genius high
"Could build the genuine rhyme?
"Whose bofom mild the fav'ring Mufe
"Had for'd with all her ample views,
Parent of faireft deeds, and purpofes fublime?"
Ah! from the Mufe that bofom mild
By treach'rous magic was beguil'd,
To ftrike the deathful blow:
She fill'd his foft ingenuous mind
With many a feeling too refin'd,
And rous'd to liveber pangs his wakeful fenfe of

[woc.

Sudden the half-funk orb of day More radiant fhot its parting ray,

[took:

And thus a cherub-voice my charm'd attention "Forbear, fond bard, thy partial praise; "Nor thus for guilt in fpecious lays

"The wreath of glory twine : "In vain with hues of gorgeous glow "Gay Fancy gives her veft to flow, [confine. "Unlcf's truth's matron-hand the floating folds "Juft Heaven, man's fortitude to prove, "Permits through life at large to rove "The tribes of hell-born woe: "Yet the fame Pow'r that wifely fends "Life's fierceft ills, indulgent lends "Religion's golden fhield tobreakth'embattled foe. "Her aid divine had lull'd to rest "Yon foul felf-murtherer's throbbing breast, "And ftay'd the rifing ftorm: "Had bade the fun of hope appear "To gild the darken'd hemifphere,

[form.

"And give the wonted bloom to nature's blasted "Vain man! 'tis Heaven's prerogative "To take, what firft it deign'd to give, "Thy tributary breath: "In awful expectation plac'd, "Await thy doom, nor impious hafte "To pluck from God's right hand his inftru"ments of death."

And all the pale tribes halting in the train
Of vice and heedlefs pleafure: or if aught
The comet's glare amid the burning fky,
Mournful eclipfe, or planets ill-combin'd,
Portend difaftrous to the vital world,
Thy falutary pow'r averts their rage,
Averts the general bane: and but for thee
Nature would ficken, nature foon would die.
Without thy cheerful active energy
No rapture fwells the breaft, no poct fings,
No more the maids of Helicon delight.
Come then with me, O goddefs heavenly-gay!
Begin the fong; and let it fweetly flow,
And let it wifely teach thy wholesome laws:
"How beft the fickle fabric to fupport
"Of mortal man; in healthful body how
"A healthful mind the longest to maintain.”
'Tis hard, in fuch a ftrife of rules, to chufe
The best, and those of most extenfive ufe;
Harder in clear and animated song
Dry philofophic precepts to convey.
Yet with thy aid the fecret wilds I trace
Of Nature, and with daring fteps proceed
Thro' paths the Mufes never trod before.

Nor should I wander doubtful of my way,
Had I the lights of that fagacious mind
Which taught to check the peftilential fire,
And quell the deadly Python of the Nile.
O thou, belov'd by all the graceful arts,
Thou, long the fav'rite of the healing pow'rs,
Indulge, O Mead! a well-defign'd clay,
Howe'er imperfect; and perinit that I
My little knowledge with my country share,
Till you the rich Afclepian itores unlock,
And with new graces dignify the theme.

Ye who amid this feverish world would wear
A body free of pain, of cares a mind,
Fly the rank city, fhun its turbid air;
Breathe not the chaos of eternal fmoke
And volatile corruption, from the dead,
The dying, fick'ning, and the living world
Exhal'd, to fully heaven's transparent dome
With dim mortality. It is not Air
That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine,
Sated with exhalations rank and fell,
The fpoil of dunghills, and the putrid thaw
Of nature, when from fhape and texture she
Relapfes into fighting elements:

It is not Air, but floats a naufeous mafs
Of all obfcene, corrupt, offenfive things.
Much moisture hurts; but here a fordid bath,
With oily rancour fraught, relaxes more
The folid frame than fimple moisture can.
Befides, immur'd in many a fullen bay
That never felt the freshness of the breeze,
This flumbering Deep remains, and ranker grows
With fickly reft: and (tho' the lungs abhor
To drink the dun fuliginous abyfs)
Did not the acid vigour of the mine,
Roll'd from fo many thundering chimneys, tame
The putrid fteams that over-fwarm the sky,
This cauftic venom would perhaps corrode
Thofe tender cells that draw the vital air,
In vain with all their unetuous rills bedew'd;

Or by the drunken venous tubes, that yawn
In countless pores o'er all the pervious fkin,
Imbib'd, would poifon the balfamic blood,
And roufe the heart to ev'ry fever's rage.
While yet you breathe, away; the rural wilds
Invite; the nountains call you, and the vales;
The woods, the ftreams, and each ambrofial breeze
That fans the 'ever-undulating fky;

A kindly fky whofe foftering pow'r regales
Man, beat, and all the vegetable reign.
Find then fome woodland fcene where Nature fmiles
Benign, where all her honeft children thrive.
To us there wants not many a happy feat;
Look round the fmiling land, fuch numbers rife
We hardly fix, bewilder'd in our choice.
See where, enthron'd in adamantine state,
Proud of her bards, imperial Windfor fits;
There chufe thy feat, in fome afpiring grove
Faft by the flowly-winding Thames; or where
Broader the laves fair Richmond's green retreats
(Richmond that fees an hundred villas rife
Rural or gay). Oh! from the fummer's rage,
Oh! wrap me in the friendly gloom that hides
Umbrageous Ham! But, if the bufy Town
Attract thee ftill to toil for pow'r or gold,
Sweetly thou may'ft thy vacant hours poffefs
In Hampstead, courted by the western wind;
Or Greenwich, waving o'er the winding flood;
Or lofe the world amid the fylvan wilds
Of Dulwich, yet by barbarous arts unspoil'd.
Green rife the Kentish hills in cheerful air;
But on the marshy plains that Effex spreads
Build not, nor reft too long thy wandering feet.
For on a ruftic throne of dewy turf,
With baneful fogs her aching temples bound,
Quartana there prefides: a meagre fiend,
Begot by Eurus, when his brutal force
Comprefs'd the flothful Naiad of the fens.
From fuch a mixture fprung, this fitful peft
With feverish blafts fubdues the fick'ning land:
Cold tremors come, with mighty love of reft,
Convulfive yawnings, laffitude, and pains
That fting the burthen'd brows, fatigue the loins,
And rack the joints, and ev'ry torpid limb;
Then parching heat fucceeds, till copious sweats
O'erflow: a fhort relief from former ills.
Beneath repeated fhocks the wretches pine:
The vigour finks, the habit melts away;
The cheerful, pure, and animated bloom
Dies from the face with fqualid atrophy
Devour'd, in fallow melancholy clad.
And oft the forcerefs, in her fated wrath,
Refigns them to the furies of her train;
The bloated Hydrops, and the yellow fiend
Tinged with her own accumulated gall.

In queft of fites, avoid the mournful plain Where ofiers thrive, and trees that love the lake; Where many lazy muddy rivers flow:

Nor, for the wealth that all the Indies roll,
Fix near the marshy margin of the main.
For from the humid foil, and wat'ry reign,
Eternal vapours rife; the fpungy air
For ever weeps; or, turgid with the weight
Of waters, pours a founding deluge down.

I

Skies