In many a local tale of harmless Of thought and texture, may assimi mirth, late LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. [Written at Clare Hall, Herts, June, 1804.] WELCOME, silence! welcome, peace! Oh, most welcome, holy shade! Thus I prove, as years increase, My heart and soul for quiet made. Thus I fix my firm belief While rapture's rushing tears descend, That every flower and every leaf I would not for a world of gold Fountain of blessings yet untold: Pure source of intellectual fire! Fancy's fair buds, the germs of song, Unquickened midst the world's rude Build me a shrine, and I could kneel That one GREAT SPIRIT governs all. Where o'er my corse green branches wave; And those who from life's tumult fly With kindred feelings, press my grave. GLEANER'S SONG. DEAR Ellen, your tales are all plenteously stored And worldly caresses, And servants that fly when she's waited upon: These fields, my dear Ellen, I knew them of yore, The birds round us singing, For pleasure is pure when affection is won: He shouted and ran, as he leapt from the stile; When virtue inspires us, and doubts are all gone. But then came autumn, when Thy dry and tattered leaves fell dead; And sadly on the gale Thou drop'dst them one by one Drop'dst them, with a low, sad wail, On the cold, unfeeling stone. Next Winter seized thee in his iron grasp, And shook thy bruised and straining form; Or locked thee in his icicle's cold clasp, And piled upon thy head the shorn cloud's snowy fleece. Wert thou not joyful, in this bitter storm, That the green honors, which erst decked thy head, Sage Autumn's slow decay, had mildly shed? Else, with their weight, they'd given thy ills increase, And dragged thee helpless from thy uptorn bed. |