With Flora join'd, flies gladsome to the bower,
Where, with the Graces and Idalian Loves,
Her sister Beauty dwells. The glades expand
The blossom'd fragrance of their new blown pride,
With gay profusion; and the flowery lawns
Breathe forth ambrosial odours; whilst behind,
The Muse in never dying hymns of praise
Pursues the triumph, and responsive airs
Symphonious warble through the vocal groves,
Till playful Echo, in each hill and dale,
Joins the glad chorus and improves the lay.
First o'er yon complicated landscape cast
The' enraptured eye, where, through the subject
plains,
Slow with majestic pride a spacious flood
Devolves his lordly stream; with many a turn
Seeking along his serpentizing way,
And in the grateful intricacies feeds,
With fruitful waves, those ever smiling shores,
Which in the floating mirror view their charms
With conscious glory; from the neighbouring urns
The' inferior rivers swell his regal pomp
With tributary offerings. Some afar
Through silent osiers, and the sullen green
Of mournful willows, melancholy flow:
Some o'er the rattling pebbles, to the sun
Obvious, with colour'd rays refracted, shine
Like gems which sparkle on the'exalted crowns
Of kings barbaric: others headlong fall
From a high precipice, whose awful brow,
Fringed with a sable wood, nods dreadful o'er
The deep below, which spreads its watery lap
To catch the gushing homage, then proceeds
With richer waves than those Pactolus erst
Pour'd o'er his golden sands; or yellow Po,
Tinged with the tears of aromatic trees.
Then at a distance, through the parted cliffs
In unconfined perspective send thy gaze,
Disdaining limit, o'er the green expanse
Of ocean, swelling his cerulean tide,
Whilst on the' unruffled bosom of the deep
A halcyon stillness reigns; the boisterous winds,
Hush'd in Æolian caves, are lull'd to rest,
And leave the placid main without a wave.
E'en western zephyrs, like unfrighted doves,
Skim gently o'er with reverential awe,
Nor move their silent plumes. At such a time
Sweet Amphitrite, with her azure train
Of marine nymphs, emerging from the flood,
Whilst every Triton tuned his vocal shell
To hymeneal sounds, from Nereus' court
Came to espouse the monarch of the main,
In nuptial pomp attired.-Now change the scene,
Nor less admire those things which view'd apart
Uncouth appear, or horrid—ridges black
Of shagged rocks, which hang tremendous o'er
Some barren heath; the congregated clouds
Which spread their sable skirts, and wait the wind
To burst the' embosom'd storm; a leafless wood,
A mouldering ruin, lightning-blasted fields,
Nay, e'en the seat where Desolation reigns
In brownest horror, by familiar thought
Connected to this universal frame,
With equal beauty charms the tasteful soul,
As the gold landscapes of the happy isles
Crown'd with Hesperian fruit: for Nature form'd
One plan entire, and made each separate scene
Cooperate with the general force of all
In that harmonious contrast.
The wonderful, the great, from different forms
Owe their superior excellence. The light,
Not intermingled with opposing shades,
Had shone unworship'd by the Persian priest
With undistinguish'd rays.-Yet still the hues
Of separated objects tinge the sight
With their own likeness; the responsive soul,
Cameleonlike, a just resemblance bears,
And, faithful as the silent mirror, shows
In its true bosom, whether from without
A blooming Paradise smiles round the land,
Or Stygian darkness blots the realms of day.
Say, when the smiling face of youthful May
Invites soft Zephyr to her fragrant lap,
And Phoebus wantons on the glittering streams,
Glows not thy blood with unaccustom❜d joy,
And love unfelt before? Methinks the train
Of fair Euphrosyné, heart-easing Smiles,
Hope, and her brother Love, and young Delight,
Come to invite me to ambrosial feasts,
Where Youth administers the sprightly bowl
Of care-beguiling Mirth; and hark! the sound
Of sportive Laughter, to the native home
Of silent Night, with all her meagre crew
Chases abhorred Grief. Prepare the songs
Of mental triumph; let the jocund harp
In correspondent notes deceive the hours,
And Merriment with Love shall sport around.
But what perceive we in those dusky groves,
Where cypress with funereal horror shades
Some ruin'd tomb; where deadly hemlock chills
The' unfruitful glebe, and sweating yews distil
Immedicable poison? In those plains
Black Melancholy dwells with silent Fear
And Superstition fierce, the foulest fiend
That ever sullied light. Here frantic Woe3
Tears her dishevel'd hair; here pale Disease
Hangs down her sickly head; and Death, behind,
With sable curtains of eternal night,
Closes the ghastly prospect.
From the good Far be this horrid group! the foot of Peace
And Innocence should tread the bless'd retreat
Of pleasant Tempé, or the flowery field
Of Enna, glowing with unfading bloom,
Responsive to the moral charms within.
Those horrid realms let guilty villains haunt,
Who rob the orphan, or the sacred trust
Of friendship break; the wretch who never felt
Stream from his eye the comfortable balm
Which social Sorrow mixes with her tears;
Such suit their minds. There let the tyrant howl,
And Hierarchy, ministers abhorr'd
Of Power illicit, bound with iron chains
She made for Liberty and Justice, gnash
Her foaming teeth, and bite the scourge in vain.
Or when the stillness of the gray-eyed eve,
3 The ancients, who had always this analogy between natural and moral objects in view, imagined every gloomy place like this to be inhabited by such personages. Creon, in his Edipus of Seneca, after he has described-procul ab urbe lacus ilicibus niger, goes on to relate what he saw there by the power of necromancy.
Horrorque, et una quidquid æternæ oreant
Celantque tenebræ ; luctus evellens comam,
Ægreque lassum sustinens morbus caput,
Gravis senectus sibimet, et pendens metus.
And to objects of a different nature we give the moral epithets of gay, lively, cheerful, &c. because the mind is so affected.
Broken only by the beetle's drowsy hum,
Invites us forth to solitary vales,
Where awful ruins on their
Denote the flight of Time; the pausing eye Slow round the gloomy regions casts its glance, Whilst from within the intellectual powers, With melancholy pleasure on the brow Of thoughtful admiration fix the sign Of guiltless transport; not with frantic noise, Nor the rude laughter of an idiot's joy; But with the smiles that Wisdom, tempering oft With sweet Content, effuses. Here the mind, Lull'd by the sacred silence of the place, Dreams with enchanted rapture of the groves Of Academus, and the solemn walks, As erst frequented by the godlike band Of Grecian sages; to the listening ear Socratic sounds are heard, and Plato's self Seems half emerging from his olive bower To gather round him all the' Athenian sons Of wisdom.-Hither throng, ye studious youth; Here through the mental eye enamour'd view The charms of moral beauty, to the soul More grateful than when Titan's golden beam First dawns upon the new recover'd sight Of one long fated to the dreary gloom Of darkness. How, to undistemper'd thought, Does Virtue in mild majesty appear Delightful, when the sympathetic heart Feels for another's woes? Was any scene So beauteous, in the wide-extended pomp And golden splendour of the Persian camp, When all the riches of the east were spread Beneath the tyrant's feet; did aught appear
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