Burst from the groves! and when the restless day, Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm The listening shades, and teach the night His praise. 80 Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles, At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all, Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast, Assembled men, to the deep organ join The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear At solemn pauses, through the swelling base; And, as each mingling flame increases each, In one united ardour rise to heaven.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade, And find a fane in every sacred grove,
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay, The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre, Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll. For me, when I forget the darling theme, Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams, Or Winter rises in the blackening east; Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more, And, dead to joy, forget, my heart, to beat!
Should fate command me to the farthest verge 100 Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles; 't is nought to me; Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full;
And where He vital breathes there must be joy. When ev'n at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers, Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go Where Universal Love not smiles around, Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns; From seeming Evil still educing Good, And better thence again, and better still, In infinite progression. But I lose Myself in Him, in Light ineffable:
Come then, expressive Silence, muse his praise.
THE STORY OF LAVINIA.
SOON as the morning trembles o'er the sky, And, unperceived, unfolds the spreading day; Before the ripen'd field the reapers stand, In fair array; each by the lass he loves, To bear the rougher part, and mitigate
By nameless gentle offices her toil.
At once they stoop, and swell the lusty sheaves; While through their cheerful band the rural talk, The rural scandal, and the rural jest,
Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time, And steal unfelt the sultry hours away.
Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks; And, conscious, glancing oft on every side His sated eye, feels his heart heave with joy. The gleaners spread around, and here and there, 15 Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick. Be not too narrow, husbandmen! but fling From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth, The liberal handful. Think, O, grateful think!
How good the God of Harvest is to you; Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields; While these unhappy partners of your kind Wide hover round you, like the fowls of heaven, And ask their humble dole. The various turns Of fortune ponder; that your sons may want What now, with hard reluctance, faint ye give. The lovely young Lavinia once had friends; And Fortune smiled deceitful on her birth; For, in her helpless years deprived of all, Of every stay, save Innocence and Heaven, She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old, And poor, lived in a cottage, far retired Among the windings of a woody vale; By solitude and deep surrounding shades, But more by bashful modesty, conceal'd. Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn Which Virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet From giddy passion and low-minded pride; Almost on Nature's common bounty fed; Like the gay birds that sung them to repose, Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare. Her form was fresher than the morning rose, When the dew wets its leaves; unstain'd and pure, As is the lily or the mountain snow.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes, Still on the ground dejected, darting all Their humid beams into the blooming flowers; Or when the mournful tale her mother told, Of what her faithless fortune promised once, Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy star Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace
Sat fair proportion'd on her polish'd limbs, Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire, Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is when unadorn'd adorn'd the most. Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's self, Recluse amid the close-embowering woods. As in the hollow breast of Apennine, Beneath the shelter of encircling hills A myrtle rises, far from human eye,
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild; So flourish'd-blooming, and unseen by all, The sweet Lavinia; till, at length, compell'd By strong Necessity's supreme command, With smiling patience in her looks, she went
To glean Palemon's fields. The pride of swains Palemon was, the generous and the rich; Who led the rural life in all its joy And elegance, such as Arcadian song Transmits from ancient uncorrupted times; When tyrant custom had not shackled man, But free to follow Nature was the mode. He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes Amusing, chanced beside his reaper-train To walk, when poor Lavinia drew his eye, Unconscious of her power, and turning quick With unaffected blushes from his gaze: He saw her charming, but he saw not half The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd. That very moment love and chaste desire Sprung in his bosom to himself unknown;
For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
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