Who fill'd with unexhaufted fire,
May boldly fmite the founding lyre,
Who with fome new, unequall'd song,
May rife above the rhyming throng.
O'er all our lift'ning paffions reign,
O'erwhelm our fouls with joy and pain:
With terror shake, and pity move,
Rouze with revenge, or melt with love.
O deign t' attend his evening walk,
With him in groves and grottos talk;
Teach him to scorn, with frigid art,
Feebly to touch th' enraptur'd heart;
Like light'ning, let his mighty verse
The bofom's inmoft foldings pierce;
With native beauties win applause,
Beyond cold critic's ftudied laws :
O let each Mufe's fame encrease,
O bid Britannia rival Greece !

ODE

то

EVENING.

BY THE SAME.

I.

H Whole foft approach the weary wood-man

'AIL meek-ey'd Maiden,clad in fober grey,

loves;

As homeward bent to kiss his prattling babes,
Jocund he whiftles through the twilight groves.
II.

When Phabus finks behind the gilded hills,
You lightly o'er the mifty meadows walk;
The drooping daifies bathe in dulcet dews,
And nurse the nodding violet's tender stalk.

III.

The panting Dryads, that in day's fierce heat
To inmost bow'rs, and cooling caverns ran;
Return to trip in wanton ev'ning dance,
Old Sylvan too returns, and laughing Pan,

IV.

To the deep wood the clamorous rooks repair, Light fkims the swallow o'er the watry

scene;

And from the sheep-cote, and fresh furrow'd-field, Stout ploughmen meet to wrestle on the green. V.

The fwain, that artlefs fings on yonder rock,
His fupping fheep, and lengthening shadow spies;
Pleas'd with the cool the calm refreshful hour,
And with hoarfe humming of unnumber'd flies.
VI.

Now ev'ry Paffion fleeps: defponding Love,
And pining Envy, ever-reftlefs Pride;
An holy Calm creeps o'er my peaceful foul,
Anger and mad Ambition's ftorms fubfide.
VII.

O modest EVENING! oft let me appear
A wandering votary in thy pensive train;
Liftening to every wildly-warbling note,
That fills with farewel fweet thy darkening plain.

ODE

TO.

EVEN IN G.

BY MR. WILLIAM COLLINS.

F ought of oaten stop, or paftoral song,

chafte

to

Like thy own folemn fprings,

Thy fprings, and dying gales,

ear,

ONymph referv'd, while now the bright-hair'd fun
Sits in yon western tent, whofe cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, fave where the weak-ey'd bat, With fhort fhrill fhriek flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds

His fmall but fullen horn,

As oft he rifes 'midft the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedlefs hum
Now teach me, Maid compos'd,

To breathe some soften'd strain,

Whose numbers ftealing thro' thy darkening vale,
May not unfeemly with it's ftillness fuit,
As mufing flow, I hail

Thy genial lov'd return!

For when thy folding ftar arifing fhews
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves

Who flept in flowers the day,"

And many a Nymph who wreaths her brows with fedge,

And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and lovelier still, The Penfive Pleasure's sweet

Prepare thy fhadowy car.

Then lead, calm Votress, where some sheety lake Cheers the lone heath, or fome time-hallow'd pile, Or up-land fallows grey

Reflect its laft cool gleam.

But when chill bluftering winds, or driving rain,
Forbid my willing feet; be mine the hut,
That from the mountain's fide,

Views wilds, and fwelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd fpires, And hears their fimple bell, and marks o'er all Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While spring shall pour his show'rs, as oft he wont, And bathe thy breathing treffes, meekest Eve!