When the rapt youth, recoiling from the roar, Through morn's grey mist its melting colours gave; Light as the breeze that brush'd the orient dew, From rock to rock the young adventurer flew ; And day's last sun-shine 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; And on the green hill's side the meteor play'd; When, hark! a voice sung sweetly through the shade, It ceas'd....yet still in Florio's fancy sung, Still on each note his captive spirit hung; Hail, blest retreats from war and shipwreck, hail! That oft arrest the wondering stranger's sail. Long have ye heard the narratives of age, '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 breathes a pensive languor o'er the soul. Hast thou thro' Eden's wild-wood vales pursued Each mountain-scene, magnificently rude; 13 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, 19 Thus, with the manly glow of honest pride, 19 O'er his dead son old Ormond nobly sigh'd. Thus, through the gloom of Shenstone's fairy grove, Maria's urn still breathes the voice of love. As the stern grandeur of a Gothic tower Awes not so deeply in its morning hour, As when the shades of Time serenely fall On every broken arch and ivied wall; The tender images we love to trace, Steal from each year 66 melancholy grace!" And as the sparks of social love expand, As the heart opens in a foreign land; And with a brother's warmth, a brother's smile; 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. Yet here Remembrance, sweetly-soothing power! Wing'd with delight Confinement's lingering hour. The fox's brush still emulous to wear, He scour❜d the country in his elbow-chair; And, with view-halloo, rous'd the dreaming hound, That rung, by starts, his deep-ton'd music round. Long by the paddock's humble pale confin'd, How would he dwell on each vast antler there! Of gallant feats and festivals of yore. But why the tale prolong?....His only child, His darling Julia on the stranger smil'd. Her little arts a fretful sire to please, Her gentle gaiety, and native ease, Had won his soul....but ah? few days had pass'd, Ere his fond visions prov'd too sweet to last. When evening ting'd 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,2 Whence erst the chanted hymn, the taper'd rite, Amus'd the fisher's solitary night; 22 And still the mitred window, richly Wreath'd, The wild deer, starting through the silent glade, With fearful gaze their various course survey'd. High hung in air the hoary goat reclin❜d, His streaming beard the sport of every wind; And, as the coot her jet-wing lov'd to lave, Rock'd on the bosom of the sleepless wave; The eagle rush'd from Skiddaw's purple crest, A cloud still brooding o'er her giant-nest. |