Through mossy grotto's amaranthine bow'rs,

And form a laughing flood in vale below:
Where oft their limbs the loves and graces bay
(When summer sheds insufferable day) Čplay
Aud sport, and dive, and flounce in wantonness of
No noise o'ercomes the filence of the shades,

Save short-breath'd vows, the dear excess of joy;
Or harmless giggle of the youths and maids,

Who yield obeisance to the Cyprian boy:
Or lute, foft-lighing in the pafling gale;
Or fountain, gurgling down the facred vale,
Or hymn to beauty's queen, or lover's tender tale.
Here Venus revels, here maintains her court,

In light festivity and gladsome game:
The
young

and

gay, in frolic troops resort,
Withouten censure and withouten blame.
In pleasure steep'd, and dancing in delight,
Night steals upon the day, and day on night:
Each knight, his lady loves; each lady, loves her

knight.
Where lives the man (if such a man there be)

In idle wilderness or desert drear,
To beauty's sacred pow'r an enemy?

Let foul fiends harrow him ; I'll drop no tear.
I deem that carl, by beauty's pow'r unmov'd,
Hated of heav'n, of none but hell approv'd.
O may he never love, O never be belov’d!
Hard is his heart, unmelted by thee, MAY!

Unconscious of love's nectar-tickling string,
And, unrelenting, cold to beauty's ray;

Beauty the mother and the child of spring!
Beauty and wit declare the sexes even;
Beauty to woman, wit to man is giv'n;
Neither the slime of earth, but each the fire of heav'n.
Alliance sweet ! let beauty, wit approve,

As flow’rs to sunshine ope the ready breast:
Wit beauty loves, and nothing else can love :

The best alone is grateful to the best.

1

Perfection has no other parallel !
Can light with darkness, doves with ravens dwell?
As soonperdie, Mall heav'n communion hold with hell.
I fing to you, who love alone for love :

For gold the beauteous fools (O fools besure !) Can win; though brighter wit Thall never move :

But folly is to wit the certain cure.
Curs'd be the men (or be they young or old),
Curs'd be the women, who themselves have fold
To the detested bed for lucre base of gold.
Not Julia such: she higher honour deem'd

To languish in the Sulmo poet's arms,
Than, by the potentates of earth esteem’d,

To give to fceptres and to crowns her charms. Not Laura fuch: in sweet Vauclusa's vale She listen'd' to her Petrarch's amorous tale. But did poor Colin Clout o'er Rofalind prevail? Howe'er that be; in Acidalian Shade,

Embracing Julia, Ovid melts the day: Nor dreams of banishment his loves invade;

Encircled in eternity of MAY. Here Petrarch with his Laura, fost reclin'd On violets, gives sorrow to the wind : And Colin Clout pipes to the yielding Rosalind. Pipe on, thou sweetest of th’Arcadian train,

That e'er with tuneful breath inform’d the quill : Pipe on, of lovers the most loving fwain!

Of bliss and melody, O take thy fill!
Ne envy I, if dear 1 ANTHE smile,
Though low my numbers, and though rude my style;
Ne quit for Acidale, fair' Albion's happy ille.
Come then, IANTHE! milder than the spring,

And grateful as the rosy month of MAY,
O come; the birds the hymn of nature fing,

Inchanting wild, from every bush and spray:
Swell the green gems and teem along the vine,
A fragrant promise of the future wine,
The spirits to exalt, the genius to refine !

Let us our steps direct where father Thames,

In filver windings draws bis humid train,
And pours, where'er he rolls his naval fiream,

Pomp on the city, plenty o'er the plain.
Or by the banks of Isis Thall we stray,
(Ah! why so long from Ifis' banks away!)
Where thousand damfels dance, and thousand

Thepherds play.
= Or choose you rather Theron's calm retreat,

Embofom’d, Surrey, in thy verdant vale,
At once the muses and the graces seat!

There gently listen to my faithful tale.
Along the dew-bright parterres let us rove,
Or taste the odours of the mazy-grove :
Hark how the turtles coo: I languish too with love.
Amid the pleafaunce of Arcadian scenes,

Love steals his filent arrows on my brealt;
Nor falls of water, nor enamellid greens,

Can footh my anguilh, or invite to reit.
You, dear IANTHE, you alone impart
Balm to my wounds, and cordial to

my

smart: The apple of my eye, the life-blood of

my

heart. With line of lilk, with hook of barbed steel,

Beneath this oaken umbrage let us lay,
And from the water's cryftal bofom steal

Upon the grally bank the finny prey:
The perch, with purple-fpeckled manifold;
The eel, in silver labyrinth felt roll’d,
And carp, all-burniih'd o'er with drops of scaly

gold.
Or shall the meads invite, with Iris' hues

And nature's pencil gay diversify'd,
(For now the sun has lick'd away the dews)

Fair flushing and bedeck'd like virgin bride
Thither (for they invite us), we'll repair,
Collect and weave (whate'er is sweet and fair)
A pory for thy breatt, a garland for thy hair.

C

Fair is the lily, clad in balmy snow;

Sweet is the rose, of spring the smiling eye; Nipt by the winds, their heads the lilies bów;

Cropt by the hand, the roses fade and die. Though now in pride of youth and beauty drest, O think, IANTHE, cruel time lays waste The roses of the cheek, the lilies of the breast. Weep not; but, rather taught by this, improve

The present freshness of thy springing prime: Bestow thy graces on the god of love,

Too precious for the wither'd arms of time. In chafie endearments, innocently gay, IANTHE! now,-now love thy spring away; Ere cold October blasts despoil the bloom of MAY. Now up the chalky mazes of yon hill,

With grateful diligence, we wind our way, What op'ning scenes our ravish'd senfes fill,

And, wide, their rural luxury display!
Woods, dales, and flocks, and herds, and cots, and

fpires,
Villa's of learned clerks, and gentle squires ;
The villa of a friend the eye-light never tires.
If e'er to thee and Venus, MAY, I ftrung

The gladsome lyre, when livelood swell’d my veins And Eden's nymphs and Ilis' damsels sung

In tender elegy, and pastoral strains ; Collect and shed thyself on Theron's bow'rs, 0

green his gardens, O perfume his flow’rs, Oblets his morning walks and footh hisev’ning hours. Long, Theron, with thy Annabell enjoy

The walks of nature, fiill to virtue kind, For sacred solitude can never cloy

The wisdom of an uncorrupted mind! O very long may Hymen's golden chain To earth confine you and the rural reign ; Then foar, at length, to Heaven! nor pray, O mufe, Where'er the mufes haunt, or poets muse,

In folitary filence sweetly tir'd,
L'nloose thy bosom, MAY! thy flores effuse,

Thy vernal stores, by poets most desir'd,
Of living fountain, of the woodbind ihade,
Of Philomela, warbling from the glade.
Thy bounty, in his verle, shall ceries be repaid.
On Twit'nam bow'rs (Aonian-Twit'nam bow'rs)!

Thy softest plenitude of beauties Thed, Thick as the winter fiars, or fummer flow'rs;

Albe the tuneful master (ah!) be dead. To Colin next he taught my youth to sing, My reed to warble, to refound my ftring : The king of shepherd's he, of poet's he the king. Hail, happy scenes, where joy wou'd choose to dwell;

Hail, golden days, which Saturn deems his own; Hail music, which the mufes fcant excel;

Hail flowrets, not unworthy Venus' crown. Ye linnets, larks, ye thrushes, nightingales ; Ye hills, ye plains, ye groves, ye streams, ye vales, Ye ever happy scenes! all you, your poet hails. All hail to thee, O MAY! the crown of all !

The recompence and glory of my song: Ne small the recompence, ne glory small,

If gentle ladies, and the tuneful-throng, With lover's-myrtle, and with poet's-bay, Fairly bedight, approve the simple lay, And think on THOMALIN whene'er they hail thee,

MAY !

SEVEN AGES OF MAN.

ALL the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players : They have their exits, and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven Ages.-At tirit, the INFANT,