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Faught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,

May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest car,

Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs and dying gales :

O nymph reserved! while now the bright-haired Sun

Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed.

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ODE TO EVENING.

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing;
Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum,
Now teach me, maid composed,

To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,

As musing slow, I hail

Thy genial love return;

For when thy folding star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp

The fragrant hours, and elves,

Who slept in buds the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brow with sedge,

And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still,

The pensive pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me roye some wild and heathy scene,

Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,

Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

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Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,
That, from the mountain's side,

Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires,
And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve;
While Summer loves to sport

Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,

Thy gentlest influence own,

And love thy favourite name!

COLLINS.

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