Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Of late I sang in artless lay
The sweets of Nuptial love,
While Autumn gilt with mellowing ray
The many-gleaming grove.
Dun Winter comes: yet once again
I woo thee, O my Muse;
Friendship once more demands the strain,
Nor thou the strain refuse.

Then rise, and wing thy welcome flight
To Bampton's ozier'd vale,
Hard by the village steeple white,
And bid my Richards hail:

For lur'd by Highland Shepherd's reed,
No more his footsteps stray
By foaming Clyde or pleasant Tweed,
Or wildly-wand'ring Tay.

Say, that beneath my humble shed
Content and Quiet dwell;
My task the beams of truth to spread,
My joy thy tuneful shell;
Mine the blithe day, the peaceful night,
By chaste affection blest,
While hope forestalls the keen delight,
That thrills a Father's breast.

What tho' he muse on mystic themes
In holy visions high;
Or Fancy wave her fairy dreams
Before his tranced eye;

He'll not disdain an ear to lend
To lift thy simple lays,
And think upon his absent friend
Beside the social blaze.

Oft by that social blaze l've sat
In harmless converse gay;
Nor heard the storm, that round us beat,
Nor mark'd the closing day.
And still I turn with fond delight,
Scenes of past bliss to hail,
Hard by the village steeple white
In Bampton's ozier'd vale.