Recalls endearing to my alter'd mind,
Times, when beneath the boxen hedge reclin'd
I watch'd the lapwing to her clamourous brood;
Or lur'd the robin to its scatter'd food;

Or woke with song the woodland echo wild,
And at each gay response delighted, smild.
How oft, when childhood threw its golden ray
Of gay romance, o'er every happy day,
Here, would I run, a visionary boy,

When the hoarse tempest shook the vaulted sky,
And fancy-led, beheld the Almighty's form
Sternly careering on the eddying storm;

And heard, while awe congeal'd my inmost soul,
His voice terrific, in the thunders roll.
With secret joy, I view'd with vivid glare,
The volley'd lightnings cleave the sullen air;
And, as the warring winds around revil'd,
With awful pleasure big,-I heard and smil'd.
Belov'd remembrance!--Memory which endears
This silent spot to my advancing years.
Here, dwells eternal peace, eternal rest,
In shades like these to live, is to be blest.
While happiness evades the busy croud
In rural coverts loves the maid to shroud.
And thou, too, Inspiration, whose wild flame
Shoots with electric swiftness thro' the frame,
Thou here, dost love to sit, with up-turn'd eye,
And listen to the stream that murmurs by,
The woods that wave, the grey-owls silken flight,
The mellow music of the listening night.

Congenial calms! more welcome to my breast
Than maddening joy in dazzling lustre drest,
To Heaven my prayers, my daily prayers I raise,
That ye may bless my unambitious days,
Withdrawn, remote, from all the haunts of strife
May trace with me the lowly vale of life,
And when her banner death shall o'er me wave
May keep your peaceful vigils on my grave.
Now, as I rove, where wide the prospect grows,
A livelier light upon my vision flows.

No more above, the embracing branches meet;
No more the river gurgles at my feet,

But seen deep, down the cliffs impending side
Through hanging woods, now gleams its silver tide.
Dim is my up-land path,―across the Green
Fantastic shadows fling,-yet oft between

The chequer'd glooms, the moon her chaste ray sheds,
Where knots of blue-bells droop their graceful heads,
And beds of violets blooming 'mid the trees,
Load with waste fragrance the nocturnal breeze.

Say, why does man, while to his opening sight,
Each shrub presents a source of chaste delight,
And nature bids for him her treasures flow,
And gives to him alone, his bliss to know,
Why does he pant for vice's deadly charms?
Why clasp the syren pleasure to his arms?
And suck deep draughts of her voluptuous breath,
Though fraught with ruin, infamy, and death?

Could he who thus to vile enjoyments clings,
Know what calm joy from purer sources springs,
Could he but feel how sweet, how free from strife,
The harmless pleasures of a harmless life,

No more his soul would pant for joys impure,
The deadly chalice would no more allure,
But the sweet potion he was wont to sip,
Would turn to poison on his conscious lip.

Fair Nature! thee, in all thy varied charms,
Fain would I clasp for ever in my arms:
Thine, are the sweets which never, never sate,
Thine, still remain, through all the storms of fate.
Though not for me, 'twas Heaven's divine command
To roll in acres of paternal land,

Yet still, my lot is blest, while I enjoy

Thine opening beauties with a lover's eye.

Happy is he, who, though the cup of bliss
Has ever shunn'd him when he thought to kiss,
Who, still in abject poverty, or pain,
Can count with pleasure what small joys remain :
Though were his sight convey'd from zone to zone,
He would not find one spot of ground his own,
Yet, as he looks around, he cries with glee,
These bounding prospects all were made for me;
For me, yon waving fields their burthen bear,
For me, yon labourer guides the shining share,
While happy I, in idle ease recline,

And mark the glorious visions as they shine.

This is the charm, by sages often told,
Converting all it touches into gold.

Content can soothe, where'er by fortune placed,
Can rear a garden in the desert waste.

How lovely, from this hill's superior height,
Spreads the wide view before my straining sight!
O'er many a varied mile of lengthening ground,
E'en to the blue-ridged hills remotest bound
My ken is borne, while o'er my head serene,
The silver moon illumes the misty scene,
Now shining clear, now darkening in the glade,
In all the soft varieties of shade.

Behind me, lo! the peaceful hamlet lies,
The drowsy god has seal'd the cotter's eyes.
No more, where late the social faggot blaz'd,
The vacant peal resounds, by little rais'd;
But, lock'd in silence, o'er Arion's* star
The slumbering night rolls on her velvet car;
The church-bell tolls, deep-sounding down the glade,
The solemn hour, for walking spectres made;
The simple plough-boy, wakening with the sound,
Listens aghast, and turns him startled round,
Then stops his ears, and strives to close his eyes,
Lest at the sound some grisly ghost should rise.

*The Constellation Delphinus. For authority for this appellation, vide Ovid's Fasti. B. 11, 113.

Now ceas'd the long, the monitory toll,
Returning silence stagnates in the soul;

Save when, disturb'd by dreams, with wild affright,
The deep-mouth'd mastiff bays the troubled night;
Or where the village ale-house crowns the vale,
The creaking sign-post whistles to the gale.
A little onward let me bend my way,

Where the moss'd seat invites the traveller's stay.
That spot, oh! yet it is the very same;
That hawthorn gives it shade, and gave it name;
There yet the primrose opes its earliest bloom,
There yet the violet,sheds its first perfume,
And in the branch that rears above the rest
The robin unmolested builds its nest.

"Twas here, when hope presiding o'er my breast, In vivid colours every prospect drest;

"Twas here, reclining, I indulged her dreams,
And lost the hour in visionary schemes.
Here, as I press once more the ancient seat,
Why, bland deceiver! not renew the cheat?
Say, can a few short years this change atchieve,
That thy illusions can no more deceive!
Time's sombrous tints have every view o'erspread,
And thou too, gay Seducer! art thou fled?
Tho' vain thy promise, and the suite severe,
Yet thou could'st guile misfortune of her tear,
And oft thy smiles across life's gloomy way,
Could throw a gleam of transitory day.

How gay, in youth, the flattering future seems;
How sweet is manhood in the infants' dreams;