Who, the purple evening, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man;
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet fings;
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale;
Come, with all thy various dues,
Come, and aid thy sister Muse;
Now, while Phæbus riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and lky!
Grongar Hill invites my song,
Draw the landskip bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mofly cells,
Sweetly muling, Quiet dwells;
B
Grongar, in whose filent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,
Sate upon a flowery bed,
With iny hand beneath my head ;
While stray'd my eyes o’er Towy's floodt,
Over mead, and over wood,
From house to house, from hill to hiil,
Till Contemplation had her fill.
About his chequer'd sides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves, and grottoes where I lay,
And vistoes shooting beams of day:
Wide and wider spreads the vale;
As circles on a smooth canal :
The mountains round, unhappy fate i
Sooner or later, of all height,
Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lefsen as the others rife :
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly-risen hill.
Now, I gain the mountain's brow,
What a landskip lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene;
But the
open scene,
Does the face of Nature show,
In all the hues of Heaven's bow !
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the fight.
Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly towering in the skies !
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires !
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads!
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks!
Below me trees unnumber'd rise,
Beautiful in various dyes :
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the fable yew,
The slender fir, that taper grows,
The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs,
And beyond the purple grove,
Haunt of Phyllis, Queen of Love!
Gaudy as the opening dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,
On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wandering eye!
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,
His fides are cloath'd with waving wood,
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an aweful look below;
Whose ragged walls the jvy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps ;
So both a safety from the wind
On mutual dependence find.
B 2
'Tis now the raven’s bleak abode ;
'Tis now th' apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds;
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Conceal'd in ruins, moss, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls.
Yet time has seen, that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,
Has seen this broken pile compleat,
Big with the vanity of state ;
But transient is the smile of Fate !
A little rule, a little sway,
A sun-beam in a winter's-day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.
And see the rivers how they run,
Through woods and meads, in shade and sun,
Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
Wave succeeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life, to endless sleep!
Thus is Nature's vesture wrought,
To instruct our wandering thought;
Thus the dresses green and gay,
To difperfe our cares away.
Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landskip tire the view!
The fountain's fall, the river's fiow,
The woody vallies, warm and low;
The
The windy summit, wild and high,
Roughly rushing on the sky!
The pleasant seat, the ruin’d tower,
The naked rock, the shady bower;
The town and village, dome and farm,
Each give each a double charm,
As pearls upon an Æthiop's arm.
See on the mountain's southern fide,
Where the prospect opens wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide ;
How close and finall the hedges lie!
What streaks of meadows cross the eye!
A step methinks may pass the stream,
So little distant dangers seem ;
So we mistake the future's face,
Ey'd through Hope's deluding glass;
As
yon
summits soft and fair,
Clad in colours of the air,
Which, to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the same coarse way,
The present's still a cloudy day.
o
may
I with myself agree,
And never covet what I fee :
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tam’d, my wishes laid ;
For, while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul :
'Tis thus the bufy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care.
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