The naked beggar fhiv'ring lies,
While whistling tempefts round her rise,
And trembles left the tottering wall
Should on her fleeping infants fall.
Now let us louder ftrike the lyre,
For my heart glows with martial fire,
I feel, I feel, with fudden heat,
My big tumultuous bofom beat;
The trumpet's clangors pierce mine ear,
A thousand widows' fhrieks I hear ;
Give me another horfe, I cry,
Lo! the base Gallic fquadrons fly;
Whence is this rage ? -What spirit, fay,
To battle hurries me away?
"Tis Fancy, in her fiery car,
Transports me to the thickest war,
There whirls me o'er the hills of flain,
Where Tumult and Destruction reign;
Where mad with pain, the wounded steed
Tramples the dying and the dead:
Where giant Terror ftalks around,
With fullen joy furveys the ground,
And pointing to th' enfanguin'd field,
Shakes his dreadful Gorgon-fhield!
O guide me from this horrid fcene
To high-arch'd walks and alleys green,
Which lovely Laura feeks, to fhun.
The fervours of the mid-day fun;
The pangs of abfence, O remove,
For thou canst place me near my love,
Canft fold in vifionary bliss,
And let me think I steal a kifs.
U
When young-ey'd Spring profufely throws
From her green lap the pink and rofe;
When the foft turtle of the dale
To Summer tells her tender tale,
When Autumn cooling caverns feeks,
And ftains with wine his jolly cheeks,
When Winter like poor pilgrim old,
Shakes his filver beard with cold,
At ev'ry feafon let my ear
Thy folemn whispers, Fancy, hear.
O warm, enthusiastic maid,
Without thy pow'rful, vital aid,
That breathes an energy divine,
That gives a foul to ev'ry line;
Ne'er may I ftrive with lips profane
To utter an unhallow'd ftrain,
Nor dare to touch the facred ftring,
Save when with fmiles thou bid'it me fing.
O hear our prayer, O hither come
From thy lamented Shakespear's tomb,
On which thou lov't to fit at eve,
Mufing o'er thy darling grave;
O Queen of numbers, once again
Animate fome chofen fwain,
Who fill'd with unexhaufted fire,
May boldly ftrike the founding lyre,
May rife above the rhyming throng,
And with fome new unequall'd fong
O'er all our lift'ning paffions reign,
O'erwhelm our fouls with joy and pain;
With terror shake, with pity move,
Rouze with revenge, cr melt with love.
HENCE loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus, and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn
'Mongft horrid shapes, and fhrieks, and fights unholy,
Find out fome uncouth cell,
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night raven fings;
There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come thou Goddess fair and free,
In heav'n yclep'd Euphrofyne,
And by men, heart-eafing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two fifter Graces more
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as fome fager fing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a Maying,
There on beds of violets blue,
And fresh-blown rofes wafh'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buckfom, blithe, and debonair.
Hafte thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jeft and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple fleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his fides,
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, fweet Liberty;
And if I-give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And finging startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rife;
Then to come in fpite of forrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the fweet-brier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the ftack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly ftruts his dames before:
Oft lift'ning how the hounds and horn
Cheerly roufe the flumb'ring morn,
From the fide of fome hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing fhrill:
Some time walking not unfeen
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great fun begins his state,
Rob'd in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight,
While the plough-man near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk-maid fingeth blithe,
And the mower whets his fithe,
And every fhepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilft the landskip round it measures,
Ruffet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks de ftray,
Mountains on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest,
Meadows trim with daifies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Towers and battlements it fees
Bofom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps fome beauty lies,
The Cynofure of neighbouring eyes.
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