Her little arts a fretful sire to please,
Her gentle gaiety, and native ease,
Had won his soul; and rapturous Fancy shed
Her golden lights, and tints of rosy red:
But ah! few days had passed, ere the bright vision fled! When evening tinged the lake's ethereal blue,
And her deep shades irregularly threw ;
Their shifting sail dropt gently from the cove,
Down by St. Herbert's consecrated grove;
Whence erst the chanted hymn, the tapered rite
Amused the fisher's solitary night:
And still the mitred window, richly wreathed,
A sacred calm through the brown foliage breathed.
The wild deer, starting through the silent glade,
With fearful gaze their various course surveyed.
High hung in air, the hoary goat reclined,
His streaming beard the sport of every wind;
And, while the coot her jet wing loved to lave,
Rocked on the bosom of the sleepless wave;
The eagle rushed from Skiddaw's purple crest,
A cloud still brooding o'er her giant nest.
And now the moon had dimmed with dewy ray
The few fine flushes of departing day,