Long have

ye heard the narratives of age,

The battle's havoc, and the tempest's rage;

Long have ye known Reflection's genial ray

Gild the calm close of Valour's various day.

Time's sombrous touches soon correct the piece,

Mellow each tint, and bid each discord cease:

A softer tone of light pervades the whole,

And steals a pensive languor o'er the soul.

Hast thou thro' Eden's wild-wood vales pursued

Each mountain-scene, magnificently rude;

To mark the sweet simplicity of life,

Far from the din of Folly's idle strife:

Nor, with Attention's lifted eye, rever'd

That modest stone which pious PEMBROKE rear'd;

Which still records, beyond the pencil's power,

The silent sorrows of a parting hour;

Still to the musing pilgrim points the place,

Her sainted spirit most delights to trace?

Thus, with the manly glow of honest pride, a O'er his dead son old ORMOND nobly sigh'd.

Thus, thro' the gloom of SHENSTONE's fairy grove, MARIA'S urn still breathes the voice of love.

As the stern grandeur of a Gothic tower

And with a brother's warmth, a brother's smile,

The stranger greets each native of his isle;

So scenes of life, when present and confest,

Stamp but their bolder features on the breast;

Yet not an image, when remotely view'd,

However trivial, and however rude,

But wins the heart, and wakes the social sigh,
With every claim of close affinity!

But these pure joys the world can never know;

In gentler climes their silver currents flow.

Oft at the silent, shadowy close of day,

When the hush'd grove has sung its parting lay;

When pensive Twilight, in her dusky car,

Comes slowly on to meet the evening-star;

Above, below, aërial murmurs swell,

From hanging wood, brown heath, and bushy dell!

A thousand nameless rills, that shun the light,

Stealing soft music on the ear of night.

So oft the finer movements of the soul,

That shun the sphere of Pleasure's gay controul,

In the still shades of calm Seclusion rise,

And breathe their sweet, seraphic harmonies!

Once, and domestic annals tell the time,

(Preserv'd in Cumbria's rude, romantic clime) When Nature smil'd, and o'er the landscape threw

Her richest fragrance, and her brightest hue,

A blithe and blooming Forester explor'd
Those nobler scenes SALVATOR's soul ador'd;

The rocky pass half hung with shaggy wood,
And the cleft oak flung boldly o'er the flood.

High on exulting wing the heath-cock rose, b

And blew his shrill blast o'er perennial snows;
When the rapt youth, recoiling from the roar,
Gaz'd on the tumbling tide of dread Lodoar;

And thro' the rifted cliffs, that scal'd the sky,

Derwent's clear mirror charm'd his dazzled eye. ©
Each osier isle, inverted on the wave,

Thro' morn's gray mist its melting colours gave;

And, o'er the cygnet's haunt, the mantling grove
Its emerald arch with wild luxuriance wove.

Light as the breeze that brush'd the orient dew, From rock to rock the young adventurer flew;

And day's last sunshine slept along the shore,

When lo, a path the smile of welcome wore.

Imbowering shrubs with verdure veil'd the sky,

And on the musk-rose shed a deeper dye;

Save when a mild and momentary gleam

Glanc'd from the white foam of some shelter'd stream.

O'er the still lake the bell of evening toll'd,

And on the moor the shepherd penn'd his fold;