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To hear the lark begin his flight,
And finging startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower 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 sweet-briar, 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 shrill:
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 liveries dight;
While the plowman near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk-maid fingeth blithe,.
And the mower whets his fcythe,
And every fhepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale..

Strait mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilft the landscape round it measures,
Ruffet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains on whofe barren breast
The lab'ring clouds do often reft;
Meadows trim with daifies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Towers 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 favory dinner fet
Of herbs, and other country meffes,
Which the neat-handed Phyllis dreffes;
And then in hafte her bow'r the leaves,
With Theftylis to bind the fheaves ;
Or if the earlier feafon lead

To the tann'd haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with fecure delight

The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecs found

To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd shade:

And young and old come forth to play
On a funshine holy-day,
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 ate,
She was pinch'd, and pull'd she said,
And he by friars lanthorn led.

Tells how the drudging goblin fweat,
To earn his cream-bowl duly fet,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His fhadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn
That ten day-lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down, the lubber fiend,
And ftretch'd out all the chimney's length,.
Basks at the fire his hairy ftrength,

And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the firft cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,

By whifp'ring winds foon lull'd asleep..
Towered cities please us then,

And the bufy hum of men;

Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold;
With ftore of ladies, whofe bright eyes.
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.

1

There let Hymen oft appear
In faffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feaft, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry;
Such fights as youthful poets dream
On fummer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod ftage anon,
If Johnson's learned fock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in foft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verfe,

Such as the meeting foul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked fweetnefs long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie:

The hidden foul of harmony;

That Orpheus' felf may heave his head

From golden flumber on a bed

Of heap'd Elyfian flowers, and hear

Such ftrains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite fet free
His half regain'd Eurydice.

Thefe delights, if thou canft give,

Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

IL PENSEROSO.

BY THE SAME.

HENCE vain deluding joys,

The brood of folly without father bred,
How little you bested,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys?
Dwell in fome idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy fhapes poffefs,
As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the funbeams,
Or likeft hovering dreams

The fickle penfioners of Morpheus' train. But hail, thou goddess, fage and holy! Hail, divineft Melancholy!

Whose faintly visage is too bright

To hit the fenfe of human fight,

And therefore to our weaker view

O'erlaid with black, ftaid wisdom's hue;

Black, but fuch as in esteem

Prince Memnon's fifter might befeem:

Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove

To fet her beauties' praise above

The fea-nymyhs, and their powers offended:

Yet thou art higher far defcended,

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