Poems on Several Occasions :: :: University of Virginia Library

Chaste queen of night! whose glist'ring ray
Now silvers o'er the scene;
Whose presence bids the fairies play,
And trip the dappled green;
Here in these shades, to joy consign'd,
Where pleasure opens all the mind,
While through the sprays thy glimm'ring glances dart,
Here will I meditate, and give the muse my heart.

II

How pleas'd the sight the view to trace!—
The smiles of Nature rise,
Sweet as the cradled infant's face,
When sleep has clos'd its eyes:
How mild her beauties are display'd!
With here the light, and there the shade;
While ev'ry look around, and look above,
Awakes th'expanding soul to gratitude and love.

III

The air what fragrant odours fill,
By zephyrs breath'd along!
While nightingales with gurgling trill,
Invite each other's song;
And can I see, and feel, and hear,
And not th'all-forming pow'r revere?—
Ah, soft pale conscience! pure approach the shrine!—
Oh, youth and folly, why must ye so constant join?

IV

And now the sprightly violin,
Each gloomy thought refines;
The organ peals, the flutes begin,
And shriller hautboy joins:
My passions vary with the strain,
I melt, and glow, and melt again;
And now the drum and trump my calm controul,
And all the native Briton blazes in my soul.

V

But hark! what warblings strike my ear!
Where swells that tuneful throat?
'Tis Vincent! 'tis her voice I hear,
More sweet than wood-lark's note:
And hark! poor Philomel, beguil'd,
Returns the music sweetly wild,
And gladly wou'd by emulation strive,
To keep the soul-enchanting harmony alive.

VI

Now Stevenson essays her skill,
Soft melody to raise;
Sweet as the pipe, that on the hill,
The artless shepherd plays:
And now the notes mellifluous flow,
Breath'd by the full-ton'd voice of Lowe;
Tho' clear, sonorous; tho' harmonious, strong;
The 'raptur'd bosom owns the magic of his song.

VII

Secluded, from the croud apart,
While studious here I stray,
Contentment hovers o'er my heart,
And flutters care away:
Beneath her life-infusing wing,
The tranquil warm ideas spring;
While nature and the muse my sense elate,
And lift me far above this sublunary state.

VIII

But contemplation now must cease;
Time calls to quit the scene;
Adieu ye shades of joy and peace!
Adieu night's silver queen!
Now in the world again I range,
And thought's impos'd a poor exchange;
While but this sage reflection's left behind:
That heav'n forms nought with pow'rs precarious as the mind.