I. 1.
While Commerce, riding on thy refluent tide,
Impetuous Humber! wafts her stores
From Belgian or Norwegian shores
And spreads her countless sails from side to side;
While, from yon crowded strand,
Thy genuine sons the pinnace light unmoor,
Break the white surge with many a sparkling oar,
To pilot the rich freight o'er each insidious sand;
I. 2.
At distance here my alien footsteps stray,
O'er this bleak plain unblest with shade,
Imploring Fancy's willing aid
To bear me from thy banks of sordid clay:
Her barque the fairy lends,
With rainbow pennants deck'd, and cordage fine
As the wan silkworm spins her golden twine,
And, ere I seize the helm, the magic voyage ends.
I. 3.
Lo, where peaceful Camus glides
Through his ozier-fringed vale,
Sacred Leisure there resides
Musing in his cloyster pale.
Wrapt in a deep solemnity of shade,
Again I view fair Learning's spiry seats,
Again her ancient elms o'erhang my head,
Again her votary Contemplation meets,
Again I listen to Æolian lays,
Or on those bright heroic portraits gaze,
That, to my raptur'd eye, the classic page displays.