But come, thou Goddefs fair and free,
In Heav'n ycleap'd Euphrofyne,"
And by men heart-eafing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two fifter-Graces more
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or,whether (as fome fages fing)
The frolic-wind,that breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a Maying,
There on beds of violets blue,
And fresh-blown rofes wafh'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair,
Hafte thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jeft and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles,
Nods and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such, as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple fleek;
Sport,that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his fides.
Come, and trip it,as you go.
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, fweet liberty;
And,if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew
To live with her, and live with thee
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And finging ftartle the dull night.
From his watch-tow'r in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rife;
Then to come in spite of forrow,
And at my window bid good morrow-
Through the fweet briar, or the vine,
Or the twifted eglantine:
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the ftack or the barn-door
Stoutly ftruts his dames before:
Oft lift'ning how the hounds and horn
Chearly roufe the flumb'ring morn
From the fide of fome hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing fhrill:
Some time walking not unseen
By hedge-row elms on hillocs green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great fun begins his state,
Rob'd in flames and amber-light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight,
While the plow-man near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk-maid fingeth blithe,
And the mower whets his fithe,
And every fhepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
、Strait mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilft the landskip round it measures,
Ruffet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do ftray,
Mountains,on whose barren breaft
The lab'ring clouds do often reft,
Meadows trim with daifies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Towers and battlements it fees
Bofom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps fome beauty lies,
The Cynofure of nighb'ring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage-chimney fmokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrfis metų,
Are at their favory dinner fet
Of herbs and other country-meffes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dreffes;
And then in hafte her bow'r the leaves,
With Theftylis to bind the fheaves ;
Or,if the earlier season lead,
To the tann'd haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with fecure delight
The upland-hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecs found
To many a youth and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd fhade:
And young and old come forth to play
On a fun-fhine holy-day,
Till the live-long day-light fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,.
With stories told of many a feat,
How faery-Mab the junkets eat,
She was pincht and pull'd,fhe faid,
And he by friers' lanthorn led
Tells how the drudging Goblin fwet
To earn his cream-bowl duly fet,
When in one night, ere glimse of morn,
His fhadowy flale hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbar-fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length
Basks at the fire his hairy ftrength,
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whifp'ring winds foon lull'd asleep.
Towred cities please us then,
And the bufy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whofe bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear
In faffron-robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry,
Such fights,as youthful poets dream
On fummer-eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Johnson's learned fock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespear, fancy's child,
Such,as the meeting foul may pierce
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed and giddy cunning
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains,that ty
The hidden foul of harmony;
That Orpheus felf may heave his head
From golden flumber on a bed
Of heapt Elyfian flow'rs, and hear
Such ftrains,as would have won the ear
Of Pluto to have quite fet free
His half-regain'd Eurydice.
These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
ENCE,vain-deluding joys,
The brood of folly without father bred, How little you bested,
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys?" Dwell in fome idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy fhapes poffefs, As thick and numberless
As the gay motes, that people the fun-beams,
Or likeft hovering dreams
The fickle penfioners of Morpheus' train.
But hail thou,Goddess, fage and holy,
Hail divineft Melancholy,
Whofe faintly visage is too bright
To hit the fenfe of human fight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'er-laid with black, ftaid wisdom's hue;
Black, but fuch,as in efteem
Prince Memnon's fifter might beseem,
*Il Penferofo is the thoughtful melancholy man; and this poema both in its model and principal circumftances is taken from a fong in praise of melancholy in Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy call'd The Nice Valour, or Paffionate Madman.
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