While Heat fits fervent on the plain,
With Thirst and Languor in his train;
(All nature fickening in the blaze)
Thou, in the wild and woody maze,
That clouds the vale with umbrage deep,
Impendent from the neighbouring steep,
Wilt find betimes a calm retreat,
Where breathing Coolness has her feat.
There plung'd amid the fhadows brown,
Imagination lays him down;
Attentive in his airy mood,
To every murmur of the wood :
The bee in yonder flow'ry nook ;
The chidings of the headlong brook;
The green leaf quivering in the gale;
The warbling hill, the lowing vale;
The diftant woodman's echoing ftroke;
The thunder of the falling oak.
From thought to thought in vifion led,
He holds high converfe with the Dead ;
Sages or Poets. See, they rife!
And shadowy fkim before his eyes.
Hark! Orpheus ftrikes the lyre again,
That foftened favages to men :
Lo! Socrates, the Sent of Heaven,
To whom its moral will was given.
Fathers and friends of human kind!
'They form'd the nations, or refin'd,
With all that mends the head and heart,
Enlightening truth, adorning art.
Thus mufing in the folemn fhade;
At once the founding breeze was laid :
And Nature, by the unknown law,
Shook deep with reverential awe.
Dumb filence grew upon the hour;
A browner night involv'd the bower:
When iffuing from the inmoft wood,
Appear'd fair Freedom's GENIUS good.
O Freedom! fovereign boon of Heav'n;
Great Charter, with our being given ;
For which the patriot, and the fage,
Have plan'd, have bled thro' ev'ry age!
High privilege of human race,
Beyond a mortal monarch's grace:
Who could not give, who cannot claim,
What but from God immediate came !
HE Prince of all the feather'd kind,
That with spread wings out-flies the wind,
And tow'rs far out of human fight
To view the fhining orb of light:
This Royal Bird, tho' brave and great,
And armed strong for ftern debate,
No tyrant is, but condescends
Oft-times to treat inferior friends.
One day at his command did flock To his high palace on a rock, The courtiers of ilk various fize That swiftly swim in chrystal skies;
* Written before the year 1600,
Thither the valiant Tarfels doup,
And here rapacious Corbies croup,
With greedy Gleads, and fly Gormahs,
And dinfom Pyes, and chattering Dawes ;
Proud Peacocks, and a hundred mae,
Brush'd up their pens that folemn day,
Bow'd firft fubmiffive to my Lord,
Then took their places at his board.
Meantime while feafting on a fawn,
And drinking blood from Lamies drawn,
A tuneful ROBIN trig and young,
Hard-by upon a burr-tree fung.
He fang the EAGLE's royal line,
His piercing eye, and right divine
To sway out-owre the feather'd thrang,
Who dread his martial bill and fang:
His flight fublime, and eild renew'd,
His mind with clemency endow'd;
In fofter notes he fang his love,
More high, his bearing bolts for Jove.
The Monarch Bird with blitheness heard
The chaunting little filvan Bard,
Call'd up a Buzzard, who was then
His favourite, and chamberlain.
Swith to my treasury, quoth he,
And to yon canty ROBIN gie
As muckle of our current gear
As may maintain him thro' the year;
We can well spart, and it's his due;
He bade, and forth the Judas flew,
Straight to the branch where ROBIN fung,
And with a wicked lying tongue,
Said ah! ye fing fo dull and rough,
Ye've deaf'd our lugs more than enough,
His Majefty has a nice ear,
And no more of your stuff can bear;
Poke up your pipes, be no more feen
At court, I warn you as a frien.
He fpake, while ROBIN's fwelling breast,
And drooping wings his grief expreft;
The tears ran hopping down his cheek,
Great grew his heart, he could not fpeak,
No for the tinsel of reward,
But that his notes met no regard:
Strait to the fhaw. he spread his wing,
Refolv'd again no more to fing,
Where princely bounty is fuppref
By fuch with whom They are oppreft;
Who cannot bear (because they want it).
That ought fhould be to merit granted.
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