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Who but would wish his holy lot
In calm Oblivion's humble grot?
Who but would cast his pomp away,
To take my staff, and amice gray ;
And to the world's tumultuous stage
Prefer the blameless hermitage?

ODE.

THE HAMLET.

WRITTEN IN WHICHWOOD FOREST.

THE hinds how blest, who ne'er beguil'd
To quit their hamlet's hawthorn wild;
Nor haunt the crowd, nor tempt the main,
For splendid care, and guilty gain!

When morning's twilight-tinctur'd beam Strikes their low thatch with slanting gleam, They rove abroad in ether blue,

To dip the scythe in fragrant dew;
The sheaf to bind, the beech to fell,
That nodding shades a craggy dell.

Midst gloomy glades, in warbles clear,
Wild nature's sweetest notes they hear :
On green untrodden banks they view
The hyacinth's neglected hue:

In their lone haunts, and woodland rounds,
They spy the squirrel's airy bounds,
And startle from her ashen spray,
Across the glen, the screaming jay:
Each native charm their steps explore
Of Solitude's sequestered store.

For them the Moon with cloudless ray
Mounts, to illume their homeward way:
Their weary spirits to relieve,

The meadows' incense breathe at eve.
No riot mars the simple fare,

That o'er a glimmering hearth they share:
But when the curfew's measur'd roar
Duly, the darkening valleys o'er,
Has echoed from the distant town,
They wish no beds of cygnet-down,
No trophied canopies, to close
Their drooping eyes in quick repose.
Their little sons, who spread the bloom
Of health around the clay-built room,
Or through the primros'd coppice stray,
Or gambol in the new-mown hay;
Or quaintly braid the cowslip twine,
Or drive afield the tardy kine;
Or hasten from the sultry hill,
To loiter at the shady rill;

Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest,
To rob the raven's ancient nest.

Their humble porch with honied flow'rs
The curling woodbine's shade imbow'rs:
From the small garden's thymy mound
Their bees in busy swarms resound:
Nor fell Disease, before his time,
Hastes to consume life's golden prime:
But when their temples long have wore
The silver crown of tresses hoar;
As studious still calm peace to keep,
Beneath a flowery turf they sleep.

Gray clothing, from the Latin verb amicio, to clothe.

ODE SENT TO A FRIEND,

ON HIS LEAVING A FAVOURITE VILLAGE IN HAMPSH

Aн mourn, thou lov'd retreat! No more
Shall classic steps thy scenes explore!
When morn's pale rays but faintly peep
O'er yonder oak-crown'd airy steep,
Who now shall climb its brows to view
The length of landscape, ever new,
Where Summer flings, in careless pride,
Her varied vesture far and wide?
Who mark, beneath, each village-charm,
Or grange, or elm-encircled farm:
The flinty dove-cote's crowded roof,
Watch'd by the kite that sails aloof:
The tufted pines, whose umbrage tall
Darkens the long-deserted hall:
The veteran beech, that on the plain
Collects at eve the playful train:
The cot that smokes with early fire,
The low-roof'd fane's embosom'd spire?
Who now shall indolently stray
Through the deep forest's tangled way;
Pleas'd at his custom'd task to find
The well-known hoary-tressed hind,
That toils with feeble hands to glean
Of wither'd boughs his pittance mean?
Who mid thy nooks of hazel sit,
Lost in some melancholy fit;
And listening to the raven's croak,
The distant flail, the falling oak?
Who, through the sunshine and the shower,
Descry the rainbow-painted tower?
Who, wandering at return of May,
Catch the first cuckow's vernal lay?
Who musing waste the summer hour,
Where high o'er-arching trees embower
The grassy lane, so rarely pac'd,
With azure flow'rets idly grac'd?
Unnotic'd now, at twilight's dawn
Returning reapers cross the lawn;
Nor fond attention loves to note
The wether's bell from folds remote:
While, own'd by no poetic eye,
Thy pensive evenings shade the sky!

For lo! the Bard who rapture found
In every rural sight or sound;
Whose genius warm, and judgment chaste,
No charm of genuine nature pass'd;
Who felt the Muse's purest fires,
Far from thy favour'd haunt retires;
Who peopled all thy vocal bowers
With shadowy shapes, and airy powers.

Behold, a dread repose resumes,
As erst, thy sad sequester'd glooms!
From the deep dell, where shaggy roots
Fringe the rough brink with wreathed shoots
Th' unwilling genius flies forlorn,
His primrose chaplet rudely torn.
With hollow shriek the nymphs forsake
The pathless copse and hedge-row brake:
Where the delv'd mountains headlong side
Its chalky entrails opens wide,
On the green summit, ambush'd high,
No longer Echo loves to lie.
No pearl-crown'd maids with wily look,
Rise beckoning from the reedy brook,

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Around the glow-worm's glimmering bank,
No Fairies run in fiery rank;

Nor brush, half-seen, in airy tread
The violet's unprinted head.
But Fancy, from the thickets brown,
The glades that wear a conscious frown,
The forest oaks, that, pale and lone,
Nod to the blast with hoarser tone,
Rough glens, and sullen waterfalls,
Her bright ideal offspring calls.

So by some sage enchanter's spell,
(As old Arabian fablers tell,)
Amid the solitary wild,

Luxuriant gardens gaily smil'd:

From sapphire rocks the fountains stream'd,
With golden fruit the branches beam'd;
Fair forms, in every wondrous wood,
Or lightly tripp'd, or solemn stood;
And oft, retreating from the view,
Betray'd, at distance, beauties new:
While gleaming o'er the crisped bowers
Rich spires arose, and sparkling towers.
If bound on service new to go,
The master of the magic show,
His transitory charm withdrew,
Away th' illusive landscape flew :
Dun clouds obscur'd the groves of gold,

Blue lightning smote the blooming mould:
In visionary glory rear'd,

The gorgeous castle disappear'd;
And a bare heath's unfruitful plain
Usurp'd the wizard's proud domain.

THE

PLEASURES OF MELANCHOLY.

Præcipe lugubres

Cantus, Melpomene !

MOTHER of musings, Contemplation sage,
Vhose grotto stands upon the topmost rock
Of Teneriff; 'mid the tempestuous night,
On which, in calmest meditation held,

Chou hear'st with howling winds the beating rain
And drifting hail descend; or if the skies
Jnclouded shine, and through the blue serene
Pale Cynthia rolls her silver-axled car,
Whence gazing stedfast on the spangled vault
Raptur'd thou sitt'st, while murmurs indistinct
Of distant billows soothe thy pensive ear
With hoarse and hollow sounds; secure, self-blest,
There oft thou listen'st to the wild uproar
Of fleets encount❜ring, that in whispers low
Ascends the rocky summit, where thou dwell'st
Remote from man conversing with the spheres!
O lead me, queen sublime, to solemn glooms
Congenial with my soul; to cheerless shades,
To ruin'd seats, to twilight cells and bow'rs,
Where thoughtful Melancholy loves to muse,
Her fav'rite midnight haunts. The laughing scenes
Of purple Spring, where all the wanton train
Of Smiles and Graces seem to lead the dance
In sportive round, while from their hand they show'r
Ambrosial blooms and flow'rs, no longer charm;
Tempé, no more I court thy balmy breeze,
Adieu green vales! ye broider'd meads, adieu!

Beneath yon ruin'd abbey's moss-grown piles Oft let me sit, at twilight hour of eve, Where through some western window the pale Moon Pours her long-levell'd rule of streaming light; While sullen sacred silence reigns around, Save the lone screech-owl's note, who builds his bow'r Amid the mould'ring caverns dark and damp, Or the calm breeze, that rustles in the leaves Of flaunting ivy, that with mantle green Invests some wasted tow'r. Or let me tread Its neighb'ring walk of pines, where mus'd of old The cloister'd brothers: through the gloomy void That far extends beneath their ample arch As on I pace, religious horrour wraps My soul in dread repose.

But when the world

Is clad in Midnight's raven-colour'd robe,
'Mid hollow charnel let me watch the flame
Of taper dim, shedding a livid glare
O'er the wan heaps; while airy voices talk
Along the glimm'ring walls; or ghostly shape
At distance seen, invites with beck'ning hand
My lonesome steps, through the far-winding vaults.
Nor undelightful is the solemn noon

Of night, when haply wakeful from my couch
I start lo! all is motionless around!
Roars not the rushing wind; the sons of men
And every beast in mute oblivion lie;
All nature's hush'd in silence and in sleep.
O then how fearful is it to reflect,

That through the still globe's aweful solitude,
No being wakes but me! till stealing sleep
My drooping temples bathes in opiate dews.
Nor then let dreams, of wanton folly born,
My senses lead through flow'ry paths of joy;
But let the sacred genius of the night
Such mystic visions send, as Spenser saw,
When through bewild'ring F ney's magic maze,
To the fell house of Busyrane, he led
Th' unshaken Britomart; or Milton knew,
When in abstracted thought he first conceiv'd
All Heav'n in tumult, and the seraphim
Come tow'ring, arm'd in adamant and gold.

Let others love soft Summer's evening smiles,
As list'ning to the distant water-fall,
They mark the blushes of the streaky west;
I choose the pale December's foggy glooms.
Then, when the sullen shades of ev'ning close,
Where through the room a blindly glimm'ring gleam
The dying embers scatter, far remote [roof
From Mirth's mad shouts, that through th' illumin'd
Resound with festive echo, let me sit,
Blest with the lowly cricket's drowsy dirge.
Then let my thought contemplative explore
This fleeting state of things, the vain delights,
The fruitless toils, that still our search elude,
As through the wilderness of life we rove.
This sober hour of silence will unmask
False Folly's smile, that like the dazzling spells
Of wily Comus cheat the unweeting eye
With blear illusion, and persuade to drink
That charmed cup, which Reason's mintage fair
Unmoulds, and stamps the monster on the man.
Eager we taste, but in the luscious draught
Forget the poisonous dregs that lurk beneath.

Few know that elegance of soul refin'd,
Whose soft sensation feels a quicker joy
From Melancholy's scenes, than the dull pride
Of tasteless splendour and magnificence
Can e'er afford. Thus Eloise, whose mind
Had languish'd to the pangs of melting love,

More genuine transports found, as on some tomb
Reclin'd, she watch'd the tapers of the dead;
Or through the pillar'd iles, amid pale shrines
Of imag'd saints, and intermingled graves,
Mus'd a veil'd votaress; than Flavia feels,
As through the mazes of the festive ball,

Ye youths of Albion's beauty-blooming isle,
Whose brows have worn the wreath of luckless in,
Is there a pleasure like the pensive mood,
Whose magic wont to soothe your soften'd souls?
O tell how rapturous the joy, to melt
To Melody's assuasive voice; to bend

Proud of her conquering charms, and beauty's blaze, Th' uncertain step along the midnight mead,
She floats amid the silken sons of dress,
And shines the fairest of th' assembled fair.
When azure noontide cheers the dædal globe,
And the blest regent of the golden day
Rejoices in his bright meridian tower,
How oft my wishes ask the night's return,
That best befriends the melancholy mind!
Hail, sacred Night! thou too shalt share my song!
Sister of ebon-scepter'd Hecat, hail!
Whether in congregated clouds thou wrapp'st
Thy viewless chariot, or with silver crown
Thy beaming head encirclest, ever hail!
What though beneath thy gloom the sorceress-strain,
Far in obscured haunt of Lapland moors,

With rhymes uncouth the bloody cauldron bless;
Though Murder wan beneath thy shrouding shade
Summons her slow-ey'd vot'ries to devise
Of secret slaughter, while by one blue lamp
In hideous conf'rence sits the list'ning band,
And start at each low wind, or wakeful sound:
What though thy stay the pilgrim curseth oft,
As all benighted in Arabian wastes

He hears the wilderness around him howl
With roaming monsters, while on his hoar head
The black-descending tempest ceaseless beats;
Yet more delightful to my pensive mind
Is thy return, than blooming Morn's approach,
Ev'n than, in youthful pride of opening May,
When from the portals of the saffron east
She sheds fresh roses, and ambrosial dews.
Yet not ungrateful is the Morn's approach,
When dropping wet she comes, and clad in clouds,
While through the damp air scowls the louring
South,

Blackening the landscape's face, that grove and hill
In formless vapours undistinguish'd swim :
Th' afflicted songsters of the sadden'd groves
Hail not the sullen gloom : the waving elms
That, hoar through time and rang'd in thick array,
Enclose with stately row some rural hall,
Are mute, nor echo with the clamours hoarse
Of rooks rejoicing on their airy boughs;
While to the shed the dripping poultry crowd,
A mournful train: secure the village-hind
Hangs o'er the crackling blaze, nor tempts the storm;
Fix'd in th' unfinish'd furrow rests the plough:
Rings not the high wood with enliven'd shouts
Of early hunter: all is silence drear;

And deepest sadness wraps the face of things.
Through Pope's soft song though all the Graces
breathe,

And happiest art adorn his Attic page;
Yet does my mind with sweeter transport glow,
As at the root of mossy trunk reclin'd,
In magic Spenser's wildly-warbled song
I see deserted Una wander wide
Through wasteful solitudes, and lurid heaths,
Weary, forlorn; than when the fated fair
Upon the bosom bright of silver Thames
Lanches in all the lustre of brocade,
Amid the splendours of the laughing Sun.
The gay description palls upon the sense,
And coldly strikes the mind with feeble bliss.

And pour your sorrows to the pitying Moon,
By many a slow trill from the bird of woe
Oft interrupted; in embow'ring woods
By darksome brook to muse, and there forget
The solemn dulness of the tedious world,
While Fancy grasps the visionary fair:
And now no more th' abstracted ear attends
The water's murm'ring lapse, th' entranced eye
Pierces no longer through th' extended rows
Of thick-rang'd trees; till haply from the depth
The woodman's stroke, or distant tinkling team,
Or heifers rustling through the brake, alarms
Th' illuded sense, and mars the golden dream.
These are delights that absence drear has made
Familiar to my soul, e'er since the form
Of young Sapphira, beauteous as the Spring,
When from her vi'let-woven couch awak'd
By frolic Zephyr's hand, her tender check
Graceful she lifts, and blushing from her bow'r
Issues to clothe in gladsome-glistering green
The genial globe, first met my dazzled sight:
These are delights unknown to minds profane,
And which alone the pensive soul can taste.

The taper'd choir, at the late hour of pray's,
Oft let me tread, while to th' according voice
The many-sounding organ peals on high,
The clear slow-dittied chant, or varied hymn,
Till all my soul is bathed in ecstasies,
And lapp'd in paradise. Or let me sit
Far in sequester'd iles of the deep dome,
There lonesome listen to the sacred sounds,
Which, as they lengthen through the Gothic vands
In hollow murmurs reach my ravish'd ear.
Nor when the lamps expiring yield to night,
And solitude returns, would I forsake
The solemn mansion, but attentive mark,
The due clock swinging slow with sweepy swy,
Measuring time's flight with momentary sound

Nor let me fail to cultivate my mind
With the soft thrillings of the tragic Muse,
Divine Melpomene, sweet Pity's nurse,
Queen of the stately step, and flowing pall.
Now let Monimia mourn with streaming eyes
Her joys incestuous, and polluted love;
Now let soft Juliet in the gaping tomb
Print the last kiss on her true Romeo's lips,
His lips yet reeking from the deadly draught:
Or Jaffier kneel for one forgiving look.
Nor seldom let the Moor on Desdemone
Pour the misguided threats of jealous rage.
By soft degrees the manly torrent steals
From my swoln eyes; and at a brother's woe
My big heart melts in sympathizing tears.

What are the splendours of the gaudy court,
Its tinsel trappings, and its pageant pomps?
To me far happier seems the banish'd lord,
Amid Siberia's unrejoicing wilds,

Who pines all lonesome, in the chambers hoar
Of some high castle shut, whose windows dim
In distant ken discover trackless plains,
Where Winter ever whirls his icy car!
While still repeated objects of his view,
The gloomy battlements, and ivied spires,

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hat crown the solitary dome, arise;
hile from the topmost turret the slow clock,
r heard along th' inhospitable wastes,
ith sad-returning chime awakes new grief;
'n he far happier seems than is the proud,
He potent satrap, whom he left behind
id Moscow's golden palaces, to drown
ease and luxury the laughing hours.
Illustrious objects strike the gazer's mind
ith feeble bliss, and but allure the sight,

or rouse with impulse quick th' unfeeling heart.
us seen by shepherds from Hymettus' brow,
hat dædal landscapes smile! here palmy groves,
sounding once with Plato's voice, arise,
nid whose umbrage green her silver head

unfading olive lifts: here vine-clad hills y forth their purple store, and sunny vales prospect vast their level laps expand, nid whose beauties glistering Athens tow'rs. ough through the blissful scenes Ilissus roll is sage inspiring flood, whose winding marge he thick-wove laurel shades; though roseate Morn our all her splendours on th' empurpled scene; et feels the hoary hermit truer joys,

3 from the cliff, that o'er his cavern hangs, e views the piles of fall'n Persepolis deep arrangement hide the darksome plain. nbounded waste! the mould'ring obelisk ere, like a blasted oak, ascends the clouds ; ere Parian domes their vaulted halls disclose orrid with thorn, where lurks th' unpitying thief, hence flits the twilight-loving bat at eve, nd the deaf adder wreathes her spotted train, he dwellings once of elegance and art. [ere temples rise, amid whose hallow'd bounds pires the black pine, while through the naked street, Once haunt of tradeful merchants, springs the grass : [ere columns heap'd on prostrate columns, torn rom their firm base, increase the mould'ring mass. ar as the sight can pierce, appear the spoils

Of sunk magnificence! a blended scene
Of moles, fanes, arches, domes, and palaces,
Where, with his brother Horrour, Ruin sits.
O come then, Melancholy, queen of thought!
O come with saintly look, and stedfast step,
From forth thy cave embower'd with mournful yew,
Where ever to the curfew's solemn sound
List'ning thou sitt'st, and with thy cypress bind
Thy votary's hair, and seal him for thy son.
But never let Euphrosyne beguile
With toys of wanton mirth my fixed mind,
Nor in my path her primrose-garland cast.
Though 'mid her train the dimpled Hebe bare
Her rosy bosom to th' enamour'd view;
Though Venus, mother of the Smiles and Loves,
And Bacchus, ivy-crown'd, in citron bow'r
With her on nectar-streaming fruitage feast:
What though 't is hers to calm the low'ring skies,
And at her presence mild th' embattled clouds
Disperse in air, and o'er the face of Heav'n
New day diffusive gleam at her approach?
Yet are these joys that Melancholy gives,
Than all her witless revels happier far;
These deep-felt joys, by Contemplation taught.
Then ever, beauteous Contemplation, hail!
From thee began, auspicious maid, my song,
With thee shall end; for thou art fairer far
Than are the nymphs of Cirrha's mossy grot;
To loftier rapture thou canst wake the thought,
Than all the fabling poet's boasted pow'rs.
Hail, queen divine! whom, as tradition tells,
Once in his evening walk a Druid found,
Far in a hollow glade of Mona's woods;
And piteous bore with hospitable hand
To the close shelter of his oaken bow'r.
There soon the sage admiring mark'd the dawn
Of solemn musing in your pensive thought;
For when a smiling babe, you lov'd to lie
Oft deeply list'ning to the rapid roar
Of wood-hung Meinai, stream of Druids old.

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WILLIAM MASON, a poet of some distinction, verse, made its appearance, of which the fourth a born in 1725, was the son of a clergyman, who held concluding book was printed in 1781. Its pur the living of Hull. He was admitted first of pose was to recommend the modern system d St. John's College, and afterwards of Pembroke natural or landscape gardening, to which the autho College, Cambridge, of the latter of which he was adheres with the rigour of exclusive taste. The elected Fellow in 1747. He entered into holy versification is formed upon the best models, and orders in 1754, and, by the favour of the Earl of the description, in many parts, is rich and vivid; Holderness, was presented to the valuable rectory but a general air of stiffness prevented it from of Aston, Yorkshire, and became Chaplain to taining any considerable share of popularity. Se His Majesty. Some poems which he printed gave of his following poetic pieces express his liberd him reputation, which received a great accession sentiments on political subjects; and when the from his dramatic poem of "Elfrida.' By this late Mr. Pitt came into power, being then the piece, and his "Caractacus," which followed, it friend of a free constitution, Mason addressed him was his aim to attempt the restoration of the ancient in an "Ode," containing many patriotic and Greek chorus in tragedy; but this is so evidently manly ideas. But being struck with alarm at the an appendage of the infant and imperfect state of unhappy events of the French revolution, one the drama, that a pedantic attachment to the ancients his latest pieces was a "Palinody to Liberty could alone suggest its revival. In 1756, he pub- He likewise revived, in an improved form, lished a small collection of "Odes," which were published, Du Fresnoy's Latin poem on the Ar generally considered as displaying more of the of Painting, enriching it with additions furnished artificial mechanism of poetry, than of its genuine | by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and with a metrical vespirit. This was not the case with his " Elegies," sion. Few have been better executed than this published in 1763, which, abating some superfluity of ornament, are in general marked with the simplicity of language proper to this species of composition, and breathe noble sentiments of freedom and virtue. A collection of all his poems which he thought worthy of preserving, was published in Mason died in April, 1797, at the age of sevent 1764, and afterwards went through several editions. two, in consequence of a mortification produced He had married an amiable lady, who died of a a hurt in his leg. A tablet has been placed to s consumption in 1767, and was buried in the cathe-memory in Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey dral of Bristol, under a monument, on which are inscribed some very tender and beautiful lines, by her husband.

In 1772, the first book of Mason's "English Garden," a didactic and descriptive poem, in blank

which unites to great beauties of language a correct representation of the original. His tribute to tir memory of Gray, being an edition of his pos with some additions, and Memoirs of his Life and Writings, was favourably received by the public

His character in private life was exemplary fr worth and active benevolence, though not without a degree of stateliness and assumed superiority d manner.

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Vainly, the cygnet spread her downy plume,
The vine gush nectar, and the virgin bloom.
But swift to thee, alive and warm,
Devolves each tributary charm:
See modest Nature bring her simple stores,
Luxuriant Art exhaust her plastic powers;
While every flower in Fancy's clime,
Each gem of old heroic time,
Cull'd by the hand of the industrious Muse,
Around thy shrine their blended beams diffuse.

Hail, Mem'ry! hail. Behold, I lead
To that high shrine the sacred maid:
Thy daughter she, the empress of the lyre,
The first, the fairest, of Aonia's quire.

She comes, and lo, thy realms expand!
She takes her delegated stand

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