Through bush, through brake, through groves, and
[vales, Through dank and dry, o'er streams and flowery Direct they fled; but often look'd behind, And stopt and started at each rustling wind. Wing'd with like fear, his abdicated bands Disperse and wander into different lands. Part hid beneath the Peak's deep caverns lie, In silent glooms, impervious to the sky; Part on fair Avon's margin seek repose, Whose stream o'er Britain's midmost region flows,
Where formidable Neptune never came,
And seas and oceans are but known by fame:
Some to dark woods and secret shade retreat :
And some on mountains choose their airy seat.
There haply by the ruddy damsel seen,
Or shepherd-boy, they featly foot the green,
While from their steps a circling verdure springs;
But fly from towns, and dread the courts of kings.
Meanwhile said Kenna, loth to quit the grove,
Hung o'er the body of her breathless love,
Try'd every art, (vain arts!) to change his doom,
And vow'd (vain vows!) to join him in the tomb.
What could she do? the Fates alike deny
The dead to live, or fairy forms to die.
An herb there grows (the same old Homer 1 tells Ulysses bore to rival Circe's spells)
Its root is ebon-black, but sends to light
A stem that bends with flow'rets milky white,
Moly the plant, which gods and fairies know,
But secret kept from mortal men below.
On his pale limbs its virtuous juice she shed,
And murmur'd mystic numbers o'er the dead,
When lo! the little shape by magic power
Grew less and less, contracted to a flower;
A flower, that first in this sweet garden smil'd,
To virgins sacred, and the Snowdrop styl'd.
The new-born plant with sweet regret she view'd, Warm'd with her sighs, and with her tears bedew'd, Its ripen'd seeds from bank to bank convey'd, And with her lover whiten'd half the shade.
Thus won from death each spring she sees him grow,
And glorious in the vegetable snow,
Which now increas'd through wide Britannia's
Its parent's warmth and spotless name retains,
First leader of the flowery race aspires,
And foremost catches the Sun's genial fires,
'Mid frosts and snows triumphant dares appear,
Mingles the seasons, and leads on the year.
Deserted now of all the pygmy race,
Nor man nor fairy touch'd this guilty place.
In heaps on heaps, for many a rolling age,
It lay accurs'd, the mark of Neptune's rage,
Till great Nassau recloth'd the desert shade,
Thence sacred to Britannia's monarchs made.
Twas then the green-rob'd nymph, fair Kenna,
(Kenna that gave the neighbouring town its name.)
Proud when she saw th' ennobled garden shine
With nymphs and heroes of her lover's line,
She vow'd to grace the mansions once her own,
And picture out in plants the fairy town.
To far-fam'd Wise her flight unseen she sped,
And with gay prospects fill'd the craftsman's head,
Soft in his fancy drew a pleasing scheme,
And plann'd that landscape in a morning dream.
With the sweet view the sire of Gardens fir'd,
Attempts the labour by the nymph inspir'd,
The walls and streets in rows of yew designs,
And forms the town in all its ancient lines;
The corner trees he lifts more high in air,
And girds the palace with a verdant square;
Nor knows, while round he views the rising scenes,
He builds a city as he plants his greens.
With a sad pleasure the aërial maid
This image of her ancient realms survey'd,
How chang'd, how fall'n from its primeval pride!
Yet here each moon, the hour her lover died,
Each moon his solemn obsequies she pays,
And leads the dance beneath pale Cynthia's rays;
Pleas'd in these shades to head her fairy train,
And grace the groves where Albion's kinsmen
TO A LADY BEFORE MARRIAGE.
OH! form'd by Nature, and refin'd by Art,
With charms to win, and sense to fix the heart!
By thousands sought, Clotilda, canst thou free
Thy croud of captives and descend to me ?
Content in shades obscure to waste thy life,
A hidden beauty and a country wife?
O! listen while thy summers are my theme,
Ah! soothe thy partner in his waking dream!
In some small hamlet on the lonely plain, [train;
Where Thames, through meadows, rolls his mazy
Or where high Windsor, thick with greens array'd
Waves his old oaks, and spreads his ample shade,
Fancy has figur'd out our calm retreat;
Already round the visionary seat
Our limes begin to shoot, our flowers to spring,
The brooks to murmur, and the birds to sing.
Where dost thou lie, thou thinly-peopled green,
Thou nameless lawn, and village yet unseen,
Where sons, contented with their native ground,
Ne'er travell'd further than ten furlongs round,
And the tann'd peasant, and his ruddy bride,
Were born together, and together died;
Where early larks best tell the morning light,
And only Philomel disturbs the night?
Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise,
With sweets surrounded of ten thousand dies;
All savage where th' embroider'd gardens end,
The haunt of echoes, shall my woods ascend;
And oh ! if Heaven th' ambitious thought approve,
A rill shall warble cross the gloomy grove,
A little rill, o'er pebbly beds convey'd,
Gush down the steep, and glitter through the glade.
What cheering scents these bordering banks
How loud that heifer lows from yonder vale! That thrush how shrill! his note so clear, so high, He drowns each feather'd minstrel of the sky. Here let me trace beneath the purpled morn, The deep-mouth'd beagle, and the sprightly
Or lure the trout with well dissembled flies,
Or fetch the fluttering partridge from the skies.
Nor shall thy hand disdain to crop the vine,
The downy peach, or flavour'd nectarine;
Or rob the bee-hive of its golden hoard,
And bear th' unbought luxuriance to thy board.
Sometimes my books by day shall kill the hours,
While from thy needle rise the silken flowers,
And thou, by turns, to ease my feeble sight,
Resume the volume, and deceive the night.
Oh! when I mark thy twinkling eyes opprest,
Soft whispering, let me warn my love to rest;
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