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Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,

May not unseemly with its stillness suit·

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves
Who slept in buds the day,

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive Pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,
That, from the mountain's side,

Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires;
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,

And love thy favorite name!

ODE TO PEACE.

O THOU, who badest thy turtles bear
Swift from his grasp thy golden hair,
And sought'st thy native skies;
When War, by vultures drawn from far,
To Britain bent his iron car,

And bade his storms arise!

Tired of his rude tyrannic sway,
Our youth shall fix some festive day,

His sullen shrines to burn :

But thou who hear'st the turning spheres,
What sounds may charm thy partial ears,
And gain thy blest return!

O Peace, thy injured robes up-bind!
O rise! and leave not one behind
Of all thy beamy train !`

The British Lion, goddess sweet,

Lies stretched on earth to kiss thy feet,
And own thy holier reign.

Let others court thy transient smile,
But come to grace thy western isle,
By warlike Honor led;

And, while around her ports rejoice,
While all her sons adore thy choice,
With him forever wed!

THE MANNERS.

AN ODE.

FAREWELL, for clearer ken designed,
The dim-discovered tracts of mind;
Truths which, from action's paths retired,
My silent search in vain required!
No more my sail that deep explores;
No more I search those magic shores;
What regions part the world of soul,
Or whence thy streams, Opinion, roll:
If e'er I round such fairy field,
Some power impart the spear and shield,
At which the wizard Passions fly;
By which the giant Follies die!

Farewell the porch whose roof is seen
Arched with the enlivening olive's green:
Where Science, pranked in tissued vest,
By Reason, Pride, and Fancy drest,
Comes, like a bride, so trim arrayed,
To wed with Doubt in Plato's shade!

Youth of the quick uncheated sight, Thy walks, Observance, more invite!

O thou who lovest that ampler range,

Where life's wide prospects round thee change, And, with her mingling sons allied,

Throwest the prattling page aside,

To

me, in converse sweet, impart
To read in man the native heart;
To learn, where Science sure is found,
From Nature as she lives around;
And, gazing oft her mirror true,
By turns each shifting image view!
Till meddling Art's officious lore
Reverse the lessons taught before;
Alluring from a safer rule,

To dream in her enchanted school:
Thou, Heaven, whate'er of great we boast,
Hast blest this social science most.

Retiring hence to thoughtful cell, As Fancy breathes her potent spell, Not vain she finds the charmful task, In pageant quaint, in motley mask; Behold, before her musing eyes, The countless Manners round her rise; While, ever varying as they pass, To some Contempt applies her glass: With these the white-robed maids combine; And those the laughing Satyrs join! But who is he whom now she views, In robe of wild contending hues? Thou by the Passions nursed, I greet The comic sock that binds thy feet!

O Humor, thou whose name is known
To Britain's favored isle alone :
Me too amidst thy band admit;

There where the young-eyed healthful Wit (Whose jewels in his crispéd hair

Are placed each other's beams to share;
Whom no delights from thee divide),
In laughter loosed, attends thy side.

By old Miletus, who so long
Has ceased his love-inwoven song;
By all you taught the Tuscan maids,
In changed Italia's modern shades ;
By him whose knight's distinguished name
Refined a nation's lust of fame;

Whose tales e'en now, with echo sweet,
Castilia's Moorish hills repeat;

Or him whom Seine's blue nymphs deplore,

In watchet weeds on Gallia's shore;

Who drew the sad Sicilian maid,

By virtues in her sire betrayed.

O Nature boon, from whom proceed Each forceful thought, each prompted deed; If but from thee I hope to feel,

On all my heart imprint thy seal!

Let some retreating cynic find

Those oft-turned scrolls I leave behind:

The Sports and I this hour agree,

To rove thy scene-full world with thee!

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