Painting fair the form of things;
While the yellow linnet fings;
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the foreft with her tale;
Come, with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy fifter Mufe.
If you paufe at the beginning of the last two lines, after the word "Come," the effect will be better.
Now while Phoebus, riding high,
Gives luftre to the land and fky,
Grongar Hill invites my fong,
Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar! in whofe moffy cells,
Sweetly-mufing Quiet dwells;
Grongar! in whofe filent fhade,
For the modeft Muses made,
So oft have 1, the evening ftill,
At the fountain of a rill,
Sat upon a flow'ry bed
With my hand beneath my head,
The reader, no doubt, will fee, by this time, the neceffity of a peculiar neatness of expression, in order to keep up the spirit of the poem.
While ftray'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 fides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind;
And groves, and grottos where I lay,
And viftas fhooting beams of day:
Wide and wider spreads the vale,
As circles on a smooth canal:
The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, of all height,
Withdraw their fummits from the skies,
And leffen as the others rife..
Still the profpect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens ftill,
And finks the newly-rifen hill.
Now I gain the mountain's brow;
What a landscape lies below!
Look as if you were abfolutely in the fituation described by the poet.
No clouds, no vapours, intervene;
But the gay, the open scene,
Does the face of nature fhow
In all the hues of heaven's bow;:
And, fwelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the fight..
Old cafties on the cliffs arife,
Proudly tow'ring in the skies!
Rufhing from the woods, the fpires
Seem from hence afcending fires:
Half his beams Apollo fheds
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 fable yew,
The flender fir, that taper grows,
The sturdy oak, with broad-fpread boug's,
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, fteep and high,.
Holds and charms the wand'ring eye..
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood;
His fides are cloth'd with waving wood.
And ancient towers crown his brow,.
That caft an awful look below;
Whofe ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps:
So both a fafety from the wind
On mutual dependence find.
Now change your look and tone to fomething more seri
'Tis now the raven's bleak abode, 'Tis now th' apartment of the toad;
And there the fox fecurely feeds,
And there the pois'nous adder breeds,
Conceal'd in ruins, mofs, and weeds;
While ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls.
Yet time has seen, that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,
Has feen this broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state:
But tranfient is the fmile of fate!
Here comes a reflection which must be read flowly and deliberately.
A little rule, a little fway,
A fun-beam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.
And fee the rivers how they run
Thro' woods and meads, in fhade and fun;
Sometimes fwift, fometimes flow,
Wave fucceeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life, to endless fleep!
Thus is nature's vefture wrought
To inftruct our wand'ring thought;
Thus fhe dresses green and
gay,
To disperse our cares away.
Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landscape tire the view!
The fountain's fall, the river's flow,
The woody vallies, warm and low;
The windy fummit, wild and high,
Roughly rufling on the sky!
The pleasant feat, the ruin'd tow'r,
The naked rock, the fhady bow'r;
The town and village, dome and farm,
Each give each a double charm,
As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.
See on the mountain's fouthern fide,
Where the profpect opens wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide,
How close and finall the hedges lie!
What streaks of meadows crofs the eye!
A step, methinks, may pass the stream,
So little diftant dangers feem:
has been long admired for the many moral reflections it contains. You muft fpeak them flowly, impreffively, and with effect.
So we mistake the future's face,
Ey'd thro' Hope's deluding glass.
As yon fummits foft and fair,
Clad in colours of the air,
Which, to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the fame coarse way;
The prefent's ftill a cloudy day.
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