Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;
And where this valley winded out below,
The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely
heard, to flow.

And flowery beds, that slumbrous influence Where INDOLENCE (for so the wizard hight11) kest,4

From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright,

If ought of oaten stop or pastoral song
May hope chaste Ere to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,
Thy springs and dying gales,

1 rustics, peasants *This song, which flows almost like an improvisation, Collins constructed from the scene in Cymbeline IV. ii, 215-229, in which Guiderius and Arviragus speak over the body of their sister Imogen, who is disguised as Fidele and O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired whom they suppose to be dead:

sun

2

Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed:

2 musical pipe
3 embroidery
"Written." says Collins. "in the beginning of the
year 1746." The British troops had lately
suffered losses in the War of the Austrian
Succession, e. g., at Fontenoy in 1745, and
Falkirk, January, 1746.

"Although less popular than The Deserted Vil-
lage and Gray's Elegy, the Ode to Evening is
yet like them in embodying in exquisite form
sights, sounds, and feelings of such permanent
beauty that age cannot wither them nor cus-
tom stale."-W. C. Bronson. See also Eng.
Lit., 219-220.

No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
7

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has
broke;

How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy
stroke!

8

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.

9

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.1

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

10

The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.*

16

Th' applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes.

17

Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes con-
fined;

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

18

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.e

19

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted
vault

The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

11

Can storied urn2 or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honour's voice provokes the silent dust, Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?

12

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,

Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

13

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

14

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

15

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless 6 i. e.. write flattering