The Poetical Works of John Langhorne :: :: University of Virginia Library

While yet my poplar yields a doubtful shade,
Its last leaves trembling to the Zephyr's sigh;
On this fair plain ere every verdure fade,
Or the last smiles of golden Autumn die;

Wilt thou, my Nancy, at this pensive hour,
O'er Nature's ruin hear they friend complain;
While his heart labours with th' inspiring power,
And from his pen spontaneous flows the strain?

Thy gentle breast shall melt with kindred sighs,
Yet haply grieving o'er a Parent's bier;
Poets are Nature's children; when she dies,
Affection mourns, and Duty drops a tear.

Why are ye silent, brethren of the grove,
Fond Philomel, thy many-chorded lyre
So sweetly tun'd to tenderness and love,
Shall love no more, or tenderness inspire?

111

O mix once more thy gentle lays with mine;
For well our passions, well our notes agree:
An absent love, sweet bird, may soften thine;
An absent love demands a tear from me.

Yet, ere ye slumber, songsters of the sky,
Thro' the long night of winter wild and drear:
O let us tune, ere Love and Fancy die,
One tender farewell to the fading year.

Farewell ye wild hills, scatter'd o'er with spring!
Sweet solitudes, where Flora smil'd unseen!
Farewell each breeze of balmy-burthen'd wing!
The violet's blue bank, and the tall wood green!

Ye tuneful groves of Belvidere, adieu!
Kind shades that whisper o'er my Craufurd's rest!
From courts, from senates and from camps to you,
When Fancy leads him, no inglorious guest.

Dear shades adieu! where late the moral Muse,
Led by the dryad, Silence, oft reclin'd,
Taught Meanness to extend her little views,
And look on Nature to enlarge her mind.

Farewell the walk along the woodland-vale!
Flower-feeding rills in murmurs drawn away!
Farewell the sweet breath of the early gale!
And the dear glories of the closing day!

112

The nameless charms of high, poetic thought,
That Spring's green hours to Fancy's children bore;
The words divine, Imagination wrote
On Slumber's light leaf by the murmuring shore—

All, all adieu! From Autumn's sober power
Fly the dear dreams of Spring's delightful reign;
Gay Summer strips her rosy-mantled bower,
And rude winds waste the glories of her train.

Yet Autumn yields her joys of humbler kind;
Sad o'er her golden ruins as we stray,
Sweet Melancholy soothes the musing mind,
And Nature charms, delightful in decay.

All-bounteous power, whom happy worlds adore!
With every scene some grateful change she brings—
In Winter's wild snows, Autumn's golden store,
In glowing Summers and in blooming Springs!

O most belov'd! the fairest and the best
Of all her works! may still thy lover find
Fair Nature's frankness in thy gentle breast;
Like her be various, but like her be kind.

Then, when the spring of smiling youth is o'er;
When Summer's glories yield to Autumn's sway;
When golden Autumn sinks in Winter hoar,
And life declining yields its last weak ray;

113

In thy lov'd arms my fainting age shall close,
On thee my fond eye bend its trembling light:
Rememb'rance sweet shall soothe my last repose,
And my soul bless thee in eternal night.