Admiring Taste delights to stray beneath
With eye uplifted, and forgets to breathe;
Or, as aloft his daring footsteps climb,
Crests their high summits with his arm sublime.
Where mouldering columns mark the lingering wreck
Of Thebes, Palmyra, Babylon, Balbec;
The prostrate obelisk, or shatter'd dome,
Uprooted pedestal, and yawning tomb,
On loitering steps reflective Taste surveys
With folded arms and sympathetic gaze;
Charm'd with poetic Melancholy treads
O'er ruin'd towns and desolated meads;
Or rides sublime on Time's expanded wings,
And views the fate of ever-changing things.
When Beauty's streaming eyes her woes express,
Or Virtue braves unmerited distress;
Love sighs in sympathy, with pain combin'd,
And new-born Pity charms the kindred mind;
The enamour'd Sorrow every cheek bedews,
And Taste impassion'd woos the tragic Muse.
The rush-thatch'd cottage on the purple moor,
Where ruddy children frolic round the door,
The moss-grown antlers of the aged oak,
The shaggy locks that fringe the colt unbroke,
The bearded goat with nimble eyes, that glare
Through the long tissue of his hoary hair,
As with quick foot he climbs some ruin'd wall
And crops the ivy, which prevents its fall;
With rural charms the tranquil mind delight,
And form a picture to th' admiring sight.
While Taste with pleasure bends his eye surpris'd
In modern days at Nature unchastis'd.
How changed is thy appearance, beauteous Hill!
Thou hast put off thy wintry garb, brown heath
And russet fern, thy seemly-colour'd cloak,
To bide the hoary frosts and dripping rains
Of chill December, and art gaily robed
In livery of the spring: upon thy brow
A cap of flowery hawthorn, and thy neck
Mantled with new-sprung furze and spangles thick
Of golden bloom; nor lack thee tufted woods
Adown thy sides: tall oaks of lusty green,
The darker fir, light ash, and the nesh tops
Of the young hazel join, to form thy skirts
In many a wavy fold of verdant wreath:
So gorgeously hath Nature drest thee up
Against the birth of May; and, vested so,
Thou dost appear more gracefully array'd
Than fashion-mongering fops, whose gaudy shows,
Fantastical as are a sick man's dreams,
From vanity to costly vanity
Change ofter than the moon. Thy comely dress,
From sad to gay returning with the year,
Shall grace thee still till Nature's self shall change.
These are the beauties of thy woodland scene
At each return of Spring: yet some delight
Rather to view the change; and fondly gaze
On fading colours, and the thousand tints
Which Autumn lays upon the varying leaf:
I like them not, for all their boasted hues
Are kin to sickliness; mortal decay
Is drinking up their vital juice; that gone,
They turn to sear and yellow. Should I praise
Such false complexions, and for beauty take
A look consumption-bred? As soon, if grey
Were mixt in young Louisa's tresses brown,
I'd call it beautiful variety,
And therefore doat on her. Yet I can spy
A beauty in that fruitful change, when comes
The yellow Autumn, and the hopes o' the year
Brings on to golden ripeness; nor dispraise
The pure and spotless form of that sharp time,
When January spreads a pall of snow
O'er the dead face of th' undistinguish'd earth.
Then stand I in the hollow comb beneath,
And bless this friendly mount, that weather-fends
My reed-roof'd cottage, while the wintry blast
From the thick North comes howling; till the Spring
Return, who leads my devious steps abroad,
To climb, as now, to Lewesdon's airy top.
From this proud eminence on all sides round
Th' unbroken prospect opens to my view,
On all sides large; save only where the head
Of Pillesdon rises, Pillesdon's lofty Pen:
So call (still rendering to his ancient name
Observance due) that rival Height south-west,
Which, like a rampire, bounds the vale beneath.
There woods, there blooming orchards, there are seen
Herds ranging, or at rest beneath the shade
Of some wide-branching oak; there goodly fields
Of corn, and verdant pasture, whence the kine,
Returning with their milky treasure home,
Store the rich dairy; such fair plenty fills
The pleasant vale of Marshwood, pleasant now,
Since that the Spring hath deck'd anew the meads
With flowery vesture, and the warmer sun
Their foggy moistness drain'd; in wintry days
Cold, vapourish, miry, wet, and to the flocks
Unfriendly, when autumnal rains begin
To drench the spungy turf; but ere that time
The careful shepherd moves to healthier soil,
Rechasing, lest his tender ewes should coath
In the dank pasturage. Yet not the fields
Of Evesham, nor that ample valley named
Of the White Horse, its antique monument
Carved in the chalky bourne, for beauty and wealth
Might equal, though surpassing in extent,
This fertile vale, in length from Lewesdon's base
Extended to the sea, and water'd well
By many a rill; but chief with thy clear stream,
Thou nameless Rivulet, who, from the side
Of Lewesdon softly welling forth, dost trip
Adown the valley, wandering sportively.
Alas! how soon thy little course will end!
How soon thy infant stream shall lose itself
In the salt mass of waters, ere it grow
To name or greatness! Yet it flows along
Untainted with the commerce of the world,
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