While Heat fits fervent on the plain,
With Thirst and Langour in his train;
(All nature fickening in the blaze)
Thou, in the wild and woody maze,
That clouds the vale with umbrage deep,
Impendent from the neighbouring steep,
Wilt find betimes a calm retreat,
Where breathing Coolness has her seat,
There, plung'd amid the shadows brown,
Imagination lays him down;
Attentive in his airy mood,
To every murmur of the wood :
The bee in yonder flowery nook ;
The chidings of the headlong brook ;
The green leaf shivering in the gale ;
The warbling hill, the lowing vale ;
The distant woodman's echoing stroke;
The thunder of the falling oak.
From thought to thought in vision led,
He holds high converse with the Dead ;
Sages or Poets. See, they rise !
And shadowy skim before his eyes.
Hark! Orpheus strikes the lyre again,
That sosten'd savages to men :
Lo! Socrates, the Sent of Heaven,
To whom its moral will was given.
Fathers and friends of human kind !
They form’d the nations, or refin’d,
With all that mends the head and heart, Enligtening truth, adorning art.
Thus musing in the folemn fhade; At once the sounding breeze was laid: And Nature, by the unknown law, Shook deep with reverential awe. Dumb filence grew upon the hour ; A browner night involv'd the bower: When issuing from the inmost wood, Appear'd fair Freedom's genius good. O Freedom ! sovereign boon of Heaven; Great Charter, with our being given; For which the patriot, and the sage, Have plan'd, have bled thro' every age ! High privilege of human race, Beyond a mortal monarch's grace : Who could not give, who cannot claim, What but from God immediate came!
THE
THE Prince of all the feather'd kind,
That with spread wings out-flies the wind,
And tow'rs far out of human fight
To view the shining orb of light :
This Royal Bird, tho' brave and great,
And armed strong for stern debate,
No tyrant is, but condescends
Oft-times to treat inferior friends.
One day at his command did flock
To his high palace on a rock,
The courtiers of ilk various size
That fwiftly swim in chrystal skies ;
* Written before the
1600,
Thither the valiant Tarsels doup,
And here rapacious Corbies croup,
With greedy Gleads and fly Gormahs,
And dinsom Pyes, and chattering Dawes ;
Proud Peacocks, and a hundred mae,
Brush'd up their pens that folemn day,
Bow'd first submissive to my Lord,
Then took their places at his board.
Meantime while feasting on a fawn,
And drinking blood from Lamies drawn,
A tuneful ROBIN trig and young,
Hard-by upon a burr-tree fung.
He fang the EAGLE's royal line,
His piercing eye, and right divine
To fway out-owre the feather'd thrang,
Who dread his martial bill and fang :
His flight sublime, and eild renew'd,
His mind with clemency endow'd;
In softer notes he sang his love,
More high, his bearing bolts for Jove.
The Monarch Bird with blitheness heard The chaunting little filvan Bard, Call'd up a Buzzard, who was then His favourite, and chamberlain. Swith to my treasury, quoth he, And to yon canty ROBIN gie As muckle of our current gear As may maintain him thro' the year ;
We can well spar't, and it's his due;
He bade, and forth the Judas few,
Straight to the branch where ROBIN sung,
And with a wicked lying tongue,
Said, ah! ye sing fo dull and rough,
Ye've deafʼd our lugs more than enough,
His Majesty has a nice ear,
And no more of your stuff can bear;
Poke
up your pipes, be no more seen At court, I warn you, as a frien.
He fpake, while ROBIN's swelling breast,
And drooping wings his grief expreft;
The tears ran hopping down his cheek,
Great
grew his heart, he could not speak,
No for the tinsel of reward :
But that his notes met no regard,
Strait to the shaw he spread his wing,
Resolv'd again no more to fing,
Where princely bounty is supprest
By such with whom They are opprest ;
Who cannot bear (because they want it)
That ought should be to merit granted.
|