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The pangs of abfence, O remove,

For thou canst place me near my love,
Canft fold in vifionary blifs,

And let me think I fteal a kifs.

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 season 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 strain,
Nor dare to touch the facred ftring,
Save when with smiles thou bidft me fing.
O hear our pray'r! O hither come
From thy lamented Shakspeare's tomb!
On which thou lov't to fit at eve,
Mufing o'er thy darling grave;
O Queen of numbers! once again
Animaté fome chofen fwain,
Who, fill'd with unexhaufted fire,
May boldly strike 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,
3.

With

With terrour shake, with pity move,
Rouse with revenge, or melt with love.
O deign t' attend his evening walk,
With him in groves and grottoes talk:
Teach him to fcorn with frigid art
Feebly to touch th' unraptur'd heart;
Like lightning, let his mighty verse
The bofom's inmoft foldings pierce:
With native beauties win applause,
Beyond cold critic's ftudied laws:
O let each Muse's fame increase,
O bid Britannia rival Greece !

CHAP. XVI.

L' ALLEGRO.

HENCE loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus, and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,

WARTON.

'Mongft horrid shapes, and fhrieks, and fighs unholy, Find out fomé 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 defert 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 fages fing)

'The frolic wind that breathes the spring,

Zephyr

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 buxom, 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-tow'r in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rife;
Then to come, in spite 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 stack, 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 liv'ries dight;
While the ploughman near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk-maid fingeth blithe,
'And the mower whets his fithe,
And ev'ry fhepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, Whilst the landscape round it measures,

Ruffet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do ftray;
Mountains on whofe barren breaft
The labouring clouds do often reft;
Meadows trim with daifies pied';
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide:
Tow'rs and battlements it fees.
Bofom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps fome beauty lies,
The Cynofure of neighb'ring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage-chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrfis met,
Are at their fav'ry dinner fet

Of herbs, and other country meffes,
Which the neat handed Phyllis dreffes:

And

And then in hafte her bow'r she leaves,
With Theftylis to bind the fheaves;
Or, if the earlier feafon lead,
To the tann'd hay-cock in the mead.
Sometimes, with fecure delight,
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks found
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd fhade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a funshine holiday,

Till the live-long daylight fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With ftories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinch'd, and pull'd, she said,
And he by friar's lantern led;
Tells how the drudging Goblin fweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly fet,
When in one night, ere glimpfe of morn,
His fhadowy flail had threfh'd the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And, ftretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Bafks at the fire his hairy ftrength,
And, cropful, out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whifp'ring winds foon lull'd afleep.
Tow'red citics please us then,

And the bufy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,

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