There shall he love, when genial morn appears, Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears, To watch the brightening roses of the sky, And muse on Nature with a poet's eye! — And when the sun's last splendour lights the deep, The woods, and waves, and murmuring winds asleep; When fairy harps th' Hesperian planet hail, And the lone cuckoo sighs along the vale, His path shall be where streamy mountains swell Where mouldering piles and forests intervene, No circling hills his ravish'd eye to bound, The moon is up-the watch-tower dimly burns And down the vale his sober step returns; But pauses oft, as winding rocks convey The still sweet fall of music far away; And oft he lingers from his home a while To watch the dying notes!—and start, and smile! Let Winter come! let polar spirits sweep The darkening world, and tempest-troubled deep! Though boundless snows the wither'd heath deform, And the dim sun scarce wanders through the storm, Yet shall the smile of social love repay, With mental light the melancholy day! And, when its short and sullen noon is o'er, The ice-chain'd waters slumbering on the shore, How bright the faggots in his little hall Blaze on the hearth, and warm the pictured wall! How blest he names, in Love's familiar tone, The kind fair friend, by nature mark'd his own; And, in the waveless mirror of his mind, Views the fleet years of pleasure left behind, Since Anna's empire o'er his heart began! Since first he call'd her his before the holy man! Trim the gay taper in his rustic dome, And light the wintry paradise of home; And let the half-uncurtain'd window hail Some way-worn man benighted in the vale! Now, while the moaning night-wind rages high, As sweep the shot-stars down the troubled sky, |