And mourns the fatal day: While stain'd with blood he strives to tear The thoughts which musing pity pays, Still Fancy, to herself unkind, By rapid Scheld's descending wave That sacred spot the village hind. O'er him, whose doom thy virtues grieve, Aerial forms shall sit at eve, And bend the pensive head! Shall point his lonely bed! The warlike dead of every age, Shall leave their sainted rest, Old Edward's sons, unknown to yield, But lo where, sunk in deep despair, Her matted tresses madly spread, Ne'er shall she leave that lowly ground, Present the sated sword. * Duke of Cumberland, second son of George II., at that time Commander of the British forces.-C. If, weak to soothe so soft an heart, Where'er from time thou court'st relief, Even humble Harting's cottag'd vale ODE TO EVENING.* IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,† Thy springs, and dying gales, O Nymph reserv'd, while now the bright hair'd sun, The measures of this admired Ode are the same which Milton used in his translation of Horace, B. 1, 0. 5; but Lyric poeiry, without rhyme, not being suitable to the English taste, it has very rarely been attempted.-C. might we but hear Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops.-Milton's Comus, v. 340. With brede ethereal wove, Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat, His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, To breathe some soften'd strain, Whose numbers stealing thro' thy dark'ning vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit, As musing slow, I hail Thy genial lov'd return! For when thy folding-star arising shows And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still, The pensive Pleasures sweet Prepare thy shadowy car. What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn.-Milton's Lycides, v. 21. Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene, By thy religious gleams. Or if chill blustring winds, or driving rain, Views wilds, and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires, The gradual dusky veil. While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, While Summer loves to sport While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves, So long regardful of thy quiet rule, Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, And love thy favourite name! |