Can the great artist, though with taste supreme
Endued, one beauty to this Eden add?
Though he, by rules unfetter'd, boldly scorns
Formality and Method, round and square
Disdaining, plans irregularly great.
Creative Titian, can thy vivid strokes,
Or thine, O graceful Raphael, dare to vie
With the rich tints that paint the breathing mead?
The thousand-colour'd tulip, violet's bell
Snow-clad and meek, the vermeil-tinctur'd rose,
And golden crocus?-Yet with these the maid
Phillis or Phoebe at a feast or wake,
Her jetty locks enamels;
In innocence and home-spun vestments dress'd,
Than if cerulean sapphires at her ears
Shone pendent, or a precious diamond-cross
Heav'd gently on her panting bosom white.
Yon shepherd idly stretch'd on the rude rock,
Listening to dashing waves, and seamews' clang
High-hovering o'er his head, who views beneath
The dolphin dancing o'er the level brine,
Feels more true bliss than the proud admiral,
Amid his vessels bright with burnish'd gold
And silken streamers, though his lordly nod
Ten thousand war-worn mariners revere.
And great Æneas 3 gaz'd with more delight
On the rough mountain shagg'd with horrid shades,
(Where cloud-compelling Jove, as fancy dream'd,
Descending shook his direful Ægis black)
Than if he enter'd the high Capitol
On golden columns rear'd, a conquer'd world
Exhausted, to enrich its stately head.
More pleas'd he slept in poor Evander's cot
On shaggy skins, lull'd by sweet nightingales,
Than if a Nero, in an age refin'd,
Beneath a gorgeous canopy had plac'd
His royal guest, and bade his minstrels sound
Soft slumbrous Lydian airs, to soothe his rest.
Happy the first of men ere yet confin'd
To smoky cities; who in sheltering groves,
Warm caves, and deep-sunk valleys liv'd and lov'd,
By cares unwounded; what the sun and showers,
And genial earth untillag'd could produce,
They gather'd grateful, or the acorn brown,
Or blushing berry; by the liquid lapse
Of murmuring waters call'd to slake their thirst,
Or with fair nymphs their sun-brown limbs to bathe;
With nymphs who fondly clasp'd their favourite
youths,
Unaw'd by shame, beneath the beechen shade,
Nor wiles nor artificial coyness knew.
Then doors and walls were not; the melting maid
Nor frowns of parents fear'd, nor husband's threats;
Nor had curs'd gold their tender hearts allur'd :
Then beauty was not venal. Injur'd love,
O whither, god of raptures, art thou fled?
While Avarice waves his golden wand around,
Abhor'd magician! and his costly cup
Prepares with baneful drugs, to' enchant the souls
Of each low-thoughted fair to wed for gain.
In earth's first infancy (as sung the bard 5,
Who strongly painted what he boldly thought)
Though the fierce north oft smote with iron whip
Their shivering limbs, though oft the bristly boar
Or hungry lion woke them with their howls,
And scar'd them from their moss-grown caves to rove
Houseless and cold in dark tempestuous nights;
Yet were not myriads in embattled fields
Swept off at once, nor had the raging seas
O'erwhelm'd the foundering bark and shrieking
In vain the glassy ocean smil'd to tempt
The jolly sailor unsuspecting harm,
For commerce ne'er had spread her swelling sails, Nor had the wondering nereids ever heard
The dashing oar: then famine, want, and pain,
Sunk to the grave their fainting limbs;
Diseaseful dainties, riot and excess,
And feverish luxury destroy. In brakes
Or marshes wild, unknowingly they crop'd
Herbs of malignant juice; to realms remote
While we for powerful poisons madly roam,
From every noxious herb collecting death.
What though unknown to those primeval sires
The well-arch'd dome, peopled with breathing forms
By fair Italia's skilful hand, unknown
The shapely column, and the crumbling busts
Of awful ancestors in long descent?
Yet why should man mistaken, deem it nobler
To dwell in palaces, and high-roof'd halls,
Than in God's forests, architect supreme!
Say, is the Persian carpet, than the field's
Or meadow's mantle gay, more richly wov'n;
Or softer to the votaries of ease
Than bladed grass perfum'd with dew-drop'd flow'rs?
O taste corrupt! that luxury and pomp,
In specious names of polish'd manners veil'd, Should proudly banish Nature's simple charms! 6 Paradise Lost, Book xi.
All-beauteous Nature! by thy boundless charmş
Oppress'd, O where shall I begin thy praise,
Where turn the' ecstatic eye, how ease my breast
That pants with wild astonishment and love!
Dark forests, and the opening lawn, refresh'd
With ever-gushing brooks, hill, meadow, dale,
The balmy bean-field, the gay clover'd close,
So sweetly interchang'd, the lowing ox,
The playful lamb, the distant waterfall
Now faintly heard, now swelling with the breeze;
The sound of pastoral reed from hazel-bower,
The choral birds, the neighing steed that snuffs
His dappled mate, stung with intense desire;
The ripen'd orchard when the ruddy orbs
Betwixt the green leaves blush, the azure skies,
The cheerful sun that through earth's vitals pours
Delight and health and heat; all, all conspire,
To raise, to soothe, to harmonize the mind,
To lift on wings of praise, to the great Sire
Of being and of beauty, at whose nod
Creation started from the gloomy vault
Of dreary Chaos, while the grisly king
Murmur'd to feel his boisterous power confin'd.
What are the lays of artful Addison,
Coldly correct, to Shakspeare's warblings wild?
Whom on the winding Avon's willow'd banks
Fair Fancy found, and bore the smiling babe?
To a close cavern; (still the shepherds show
The sacred place, whence with religious awe
They hear, returning from the field at eve,
Strange whisperings of sweet music through the air)
Here, as with honey gather'd from the rock,
She fed the little prattler, and with songs
7 Gray's Progress of Poesy.
Oft sooth'd his wondering ears; with deep delight,
On her soft lap he sat, and caught the sounds.
Oft near some crowded city would I walk,
Listening the far-off noises, rattling cars,
Loud shouts of joy, sad shrieks of sorrow, knells
Full slowly tolling, instruments of trade,
Striking mine ears with one deep-swelling hum.
Or wandering near the sea, attend the sands
Of hollow winds, and ever-beating waves,
Ev'n when wild tempests swallow up the plains,
And Boreas' blasts, big hail, and rains combine
To shake the groves and mountains, would I sit,
Pensively musing on the' outrageous crimes [hours,
That wake Heaven's vengeance: at such solemn
Demons and goblins through the dark air shriek,
While Hecate, with her black-brow'd sisters nine,
Rides o'er the earth, and scatters woes and death.
Then too, they say, in drear Egyptian wilds
The lion and the tiger prowl for prey
With roarings loud! the listening traveller
Starts fear-struck, while the hollow-echoing vaults
Of pyramids increase the deathful sounds.
But let me never fail in cloudless nights,
When silent Cynthia in her silver car
[hills, Through the blue concave slides, when shine the Twinkle the streanis, and woods look tip'd with gold, To seek some level mead, and there invoke Old Midnight's sister, Contemplation sage, (Queen of the rugged brow, and stern-fix'd eye) To lift my soul above this little earth, This folly-fetter'd world: to purge my ears, That I may hear the rolling planets' song, And tuneful turning spheres: if this be barr'd, The little fays that dance in neighbouring dales,
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