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And now with zeal, that 'scapes all searching eyes,
By nightly journies, and by deep disguise,
The friendly priest has led the tender pair,
Where quiet seems to consecrate the air;
Where pensive fancy, with a voice sedate,
Appears to whisper all who pass the gate,
“Ye, who have enter'd, banish every fear,
For safe tranquillity is sovereign here!”—
In times remote, this fair, and fertile spot
Of a young noble form'd the busy lot;
Manfrendi's ancestor! his active mind
Indulg'd unbounded love for arts refin'd.
Here, with a skilful architect his friend,
He bade his statues, and his shrines ascend;
Here he so mingled, with his cells and towers,
His streams, his pastures, and his sylvan bowers,
The charms of Greece to second life he rais'd;
In one bright villa all Arcadia blaz'd.
But here, where new born art attain'd her prime,
Rash prodigality, assisting time,
Half its profuse magnificence destroy'd,
Ere its new lord the verdant scene enjoy'd.
When first this heritage became his lot,
Manfredi sigh'd o'er the dismantled spot;
For statues, of prime note, had fled away;
Towers fell, and temples trembled in decay.
Still with sunk charms, yet awfully serene,
The ghost of grandeur seem'd to guard the scene.
Manfredi's penetrating eye could see
All it had been, and all it yet might be:
Tho' in the mould'ring villa he had found
Scarce half the beauties, that once deck'd the ground,
Yet, as these suited his afflicted soul,
He deem'd the half superior to the whole.
The relicks, soon with guardian order grac'd,
He cherish'd with neat care, and pensive taste,
His house, beneath whose roof a prince might dwell,
In part unfurnish'd stands, a sumptuous shell!
In parts, with modest elegance compleat,
For many a friend might form a choice retreat.
Open arcades of different aspects run
To catch the rising, and the setting sun;
O'er these apartments, of nice order, rise;
Each with a prospect to enchant all eyes!
His eastern wing allotting to his guest,
Lonely Manfredi lurks within the west;
But like a secret minister of good,
Some unseen genius of a sacred wood,
With quiet bounty, searching as the air,
Broods o'er the charge confided to his care;
And, tho' for ever to their sight denied,
Leaves not a want, they suffer, unsupplied.