But, ah! too soon, with pity's tender pain,
She saw its dire effect o'er all the plain:
Sudden from thence the sounds of anguish flow,
And joy's sweet carols end in shrieks of woe.
Here gloomy Terror, with a.shadowy rope,
Seems, like a Turkish mute, to strangle Hope.
But pangs more cruel, more intensely keen,
Wound and distract their sympathetic Queen.
With fruitless tears she o'er their misery bends;
From her sweet brow the thorny rose she rends,
And, bow'd by grief's insufferable weight,
Frantic she curses her immortal state:

The soft Serena, as this curse she hears,
Feels her bright eye suffus'd with kindred tears.
The guardian POWER survey'd her lovely grief,
And spoke in gentle terms of mild relief:
"For this soft tribe they heaviest fear dismiss,
And know their pains are transient as their bliss:
Rapture and agony, in Nature's loom,

Have form'd the changing tissue of their doom;
Both interwoven with so nice an art,

No power can tear the twisted threads apart;
Yet happier these, to Nature's heart more dear,
Than the dull offspring in the torpid sphere,
Where her warm wishes, and affections kind,
Lose their bright current in the stagnant mind.
Here grief and joy so suddenly unite,
That anguish serves to sublimate delight."

She spoke; and, ere Serena could reply,

The vapour vanish'd from the lucid sky,

The nymphs revive, the shadowy fiends are fled,
The new-born flowers a richer fragrance shed,--
While on the lovely Queen's enchanting face,
Departed sorrow's faint and fainter trace

Gave to each touching charm a more attractive grace.

Or the near grasshopper's incessant note,
That snug beneath the wall in comfort sits,
And chirping imitates the silvery chink
Of wages told into the ploughman's palm-
Or gentle curlew bidding kind good night
To the spent villager, or ere his hand
The cottage taper quench-or grazing ox
His dewy supper from the savoury herb
Audibly gathering-or cheerful hind

From the lov'd harvest feast returning home,
Whistling at intervals some rustic air.
Such rural sounds,

If haply notic'd by the musing mind,

Sweet interruption yield, and thrice improve
The solemn luxury of idle thought.

If not abroad I sit, but sip at home
The cheering beverage of fading eve,

By some fair hand, or ere it reach the lip,
With mingled flavour tinctur'd of the cane
And Asiatic leaf, let the mute flock,

As from the window studious looks mine eye,
Steal fold-ward nibbling o'er the shadowy down-
Let the reluctant milch-kine of the farm

Wend slowly from the pasture to the pail.
Let the glad ox, unyok'd, make haste to field,
And the stout wain-horse, of encumbrance stript,
Shake his enormous limbs with blund'ring speed,
Eager to gratify his famish'd lip

With taste of herbage and the meadow-brook.

THE gorse is yellow on the heath,

The banks with speedwell flowers are gay,

The oaks are budding; and beneath,

The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath,
The silver wreath of May.

The welcome guest of settled Spring,
The Swallow, too, is come at last;
Just at sunset, when thrushes sing,
I saw her dash with rapid wing,
And hail'd her as she pass'd.

Come, summer visitant, attach

To my reed-roof your nest of clay, And let my ear your music catch, Low twittering underneath the thatch, At the grey dawn of day.

As fables tell, an Indian Sage,
The Hindustani woods among,
Could in his desert hermitage,
As if 'twere mark'd in written page,
Translate the wild bird's song.

I wish I did his power possess,

That I might learn, fleet bird, from thee.

What our vain systems only guess,

And know from what wild wilderness
You came across the sea.

I would a little while restrain

Your rapid wing, that I might hear
Whether on clouds that bring the rain,
You sail'd above the western main,
The wind your charioteer.

In Afric, does the sultry gale,

Through spicy bower, and palmy grove,

Bear the repeated Cuckoo's tale?

Dwells there a time, the wandering Rail,

Or the itinerant Dove?