"Where open Vice o'er Virtue ne'er pre"vailed; "Where all is innocence, and all is love. "Peace with her olive wand triumphant reigns, "Guarding secure the peasant's humble " bed; Envy is banished from the happy plains, "Health and Contentment usher in the morn; "With jocund smiles they cheer the rural "swain ; "For which the peer, to pompous titles born, "Forsaken sighs, but all his sighs are vain. * For the calm comforts of an easy mind, "In yonder lonely cot delight to dwell, "And leave the statesman for the labouring "hind, "The regal palace for the lowly cell. "Ye, who to Wisdom would devote your "hours, "And far from riot, far from discord stray! "Look back disdainful on the city's towers, "Where Pride, where Folly, point the slippery way. "Pure flows the limpid stream in crystal tides, "Thro' rocks, thro' dens, and ever-verdant "vales, "Till to the town's unhallowed wall it glides, "Where all its purity and lustre fails." ON THE COLD MONTH OF APRIL, 1771, Oh! who can hold a fire in his hand Or wallow naked in December's snow POETS in vain have hailed the opening Spring, In tender accents wooed the blooming maid, In vain have taught the April birds to wing Their flight thro' fields in verdant hue array'd. The Muse, in every season taught to sing Amidst the desert snows, by Fancy's powers, Can elevated soar, on placid wing, To climes where Spring her kindest influence showers. April! once famous for the zephyr mild ; For sweets that early in the garden grow; Say, how converted to this cheerless wild, Rushing with torrents of dissolving snow. Nursed by the moisture of a gentle shower, Thy foliage oft hath sounded to the breeze; Oft did thy choristers melodious pour Their melting numbers thro' the shady trees. Fair have I seen thy morn, in smiles arrayed, With crimson blush bepaint the eastern sky; But now the dawn creeps mournful o'er the glade, Shrowded in colours of a sable dye. So have I seen the fair, with laughing eye, Life! what art thou?-a variegated scene Of mingled light and shade, of joy and woe; A sea where calms and storms promiscuous reign; A stream where sweet and bitter jointly flow. Mute are the plains; the shepherd pipes no more; The reed's forsaken, and the tender flock; While Echo, listening to the tempest's roar, In silence wanders o'er the beetling rock. Winter, too potent for the solar ray, Bestrides the blast, ascends his icy throne, And views Britannia, subject to his sway, Floating emergent on the frigid zone. Thou savage tyrant of the fretful sky! Relent, O Boreas! leave thy frozen cell; Resign to Spring her portion of the year; Let west winds temp'rate wave the flowing gale, And hills, and vales, and woods, a vernal aspect wear. VERSES Written at the Hermitage of Braid, near Edinburgh. WOULD you relish a rural retreat, Or the pleasure the groves can inspire? The city's allurements forget, To this spot of enchantment retire; Where a valley and crystalline brook, The beautiful woodlands among. Behold the umbrageous trees A covert of verdure have spread, Where shepherds may loll at their ease, And pipe to the musical shade. For, lo! thro' each op'ning is heard, Whose numbers melodiously flow. |