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The Poetical Works of the Late Thomas Warton

... Fifth Edition, Corrected and Enlarged. To which are now added Inscriptionum Romanarum Delectus, and An Inaugural Speech As Camden Professor of History, never before published. Together with Memoirs of his Life and Writings; and Notes, Critical and Explanatory. By Richard Mant

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168

ODE VIII. MORNING.

THE AUTHOR CONFINED TO COLLEGE.

Scribimus inclusi. ------
Pers. Sat. 1. ver. 13.

(Written in 1745, his 17th year. Published in 1750, in the Student.)
Once more the vernal sun's ambrosial beams
The fields as with a purple robe adorn:
Cherwell, thy sedgy banks and glist'ring streams
All laugh and sing at mild approach of morn;
Thro' the deep groves I hear the chaunting birds,
And thro' the clover'd vale the various-lowing herds.
Up mounts the mower from his lowly thatch,
Well pleas'd the progress of the spring to mark,

169

The fragrant breath of breezes pure to catch,
And startle from her couch the early lark;
More genuine pleasure soothes his tranquil breast,
Than high-thron'd kings can boast, in eastern glory drest.
The pensive poet thro' the green-wood steals,
Or treads the willow'd marge of murmuring brook;
Or climbs the steep ascent of airy hills;
There sits him down beneath a branching oak,
Whence various scenes, and prospects wide below,
Still teach his musing mind with fancies high to glow.
But I nor with the day awake to bliss,
(Inelegant to me fair Nature's face,
A blank the beauty of the morning is,
And grief and darkness all for light and grace;)
Nor bright the sun, nor green the meads appear,
Nor colour charms mine eye, nor melody mine ear.
Me, void of elegance and manners mild,
With leaden rod, stern Discipline restrains;

170

Stiff Pedantry, of learned Pride the Child,
My roving genius binds in Gothic chains;
Nor can the cloister'd Muse expand her wing,
Nor bid these twilight roofs with her gay carols ring.