woe 45 While some affect the sun, and some the shade, Some flee the city, some the hermitage, Lead it through various scenes of life and Their aims as various as the roads they death, take Thy long-extended realms, and rueful Again the screech-owl shrieks: ungracious Embodied, thick, perform their mystic rounds. No other merriment, dull tree! is thine. See yonder hallowed fane;-the pious work Of names once famed, now dubious or forgot, sound! I'll hear no more; it makes one's blood run chill. Quite round the pile, a row of reverend elms, 45 (Coeval near with that) all ragged show, Long lashed by the rude winds. Some rift half down Their branchless trunks; others so thin a-top, That scarce two crows could lodge in the same tree. Strange things, the neighbors say, have happened here: 50 Wild shrieks have issued from the hollow tombs; Dead men have come again, and walked about; And the great bell has tolled, unrung, untouched. (Such tales their cheer, at wake or gossiping, When it draws near the witching time of night.) 55 Oft in the lone church-yard at night I've seen, By glimpse of moonshine chequering through the trees, The school-boy, with his satchel in his hand, And buried midst the wreck of things Whistling aloud to bear his courage up, And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones, which were; 30 There lie interred the more illustrious dead. The wind is up: hark! how it howls! Methinks Till now I never heard a sound so dreary: Doors creak, and windows clap, and night's foul bird, бо (With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown,) That tell in homely phrase who lie below. Sudden he starts, and hears, or thinks he hears, 1 cowering. The sound of something purring at his heels; Full fast he flies, and dares not look behind him, 65 Till out of breath he overtakes his fellows: Who gather round, and wonder at the tale Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly, That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand ODE WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1746 How sleep the brave who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod O'er some new-opened grave; and (strange Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 5 By forms unseen their dirge is sung; ODE TO EVENING If ought of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Like thy own solemn springs, O nymph reserved, while now the brighthaired sun 5 Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede1 ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed: Now air is hushed, save where the weakeyed bat, With short shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds ΙΟ As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, 15 Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale May not unseemly with its stillness suit, 1 embroidery. 20 THE PASSIONS AN ODE FOR MUSIC 5 When Music, heavenly maid, was young, ΙΟ 15 Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of Last came Joy's ecstatic trial. 80 First to the lively pipe his hand addressed; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best. They would have thought, who heard the strain, 85 They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, 90 Loved framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound, And he, admist his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. 95 O Music, sphere-descended maid, 105 Where is thy native simple heart, 1 energetic. 1 |