Now the golden Morn aloft

Waves her dew-bespangled wing,

With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
She woos the tardy Spring:

Till April starts, and calls around

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The sleeping fragrance from the ground,
And lightly o'er the living scene

Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.

Smiles on past misfortune's brow
Soft reflection's hand can trace,
And o'er the cheek of sorrow throw
A melancholy grace;

While hope prolongs our happier hour
Or deepest shades, that dimly lour
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.

Still, where rosy pleasure leads,
See a kindred grief pursue;
Behind the steps that misery treads
Approaching comfort view:
The hues of bliss more brightly glow
Chastised by sabler tints of woe,
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.

See the wretch that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost
And breathe and walk again :
The meanest floweret of the vale,

2.

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The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.

T. Gray

CLIII.

ODE TO SIMPLICITY

O Thou, by Nature taught

To breathe her genuine thought

In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong;

Who first, on mountains wild,

In Fancy, loveliest child,

Thy babe, or Pleasure's, nursed the powers of song!

Thou, who with hermit heart,
Disdain'st the wealth of art,

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall,

But com'st, a decent maid

In Attic robe array'd,

O chaste, unboastful Nymph, to thee I call!

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By all the honey'd store

On Hybla's thymy shore,

By all her blooms and mingled murmurs dear
By her whose love-lorn woe

In evening musings slow

Soothed sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear:

By old Cephisus deep,

Who spread his wavy sweep

In warbled wanderings round thy green retreat;
On whose enamell'd side,

When holy freedom died,

No equal haunt allured thy future feet :

O sister meek of Truth,

To my admiring youth

Thy sober aid and native charms infuse !
The flowers that sweetest breathe,
Though Beauty cull'd the wreath,

Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues.

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While Rome could none esteem

But Virtue's patriot theme,

You loved her hills, and led her laureat band;
But stay'd to sing alone

To one distinguish'd throne;

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And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land.

No more, in hall or bower,

The passions own thy power;

Love, only Love, her forceless numbers mean :

For thou hast left her shrine;

Nor olive more, nor vine,

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Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene.

Though taste, though genius, bless
To some divine excess,

Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole;

What each, what all supply

May court, may charm our eye;

Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul!

Of these let others ask

To aid some mighty task;

I only seek to find thy temperate vale ;

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3.

Where oft my reed might sound
To maids and shepherds round,

And all thy sons, O Nature! learn my tale.

W. Collins

CLIV.

SOLITUDE

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire ;

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years, slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixt, sweet recreation,

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ON A FAVOURITE CAT, DROWNED IN A TUB OF