Already it calls for my love,

To prune the wild branches away.

From the plains, from the woodlands and groves,
What strains of wild melody flow!
How the nightingales warble their loves

From thickets of roses that blow !
And when her bright form shall appear,
Each bird shall harmoniously join

In concert so soft and so clear,

As she may not be fond to resign.

I have found out a gift for my fair;

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed: But let me that plunder forbear,

She will say 'twas a barbarous deed.

For he ne'er could be true, she averred,

Who would rob a poor bird of its young:

And I loved her the more when I heard

Such tenderness fall from her tongue.

I have heard her with sweetness unfold
How that pity was due to a dove:
That it ever attended the bold;

And she called it the sister of love.
But her words such a pleasure-convey,
So much I her accents adore,
Let her speak, and whatever she say,

Methinks I should love her the more.

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

Can a bosom so gentle remain

Unmoved, when her Corydon sighs?
Will a nymph that is fond of the plain,
These plains and this valley despise?
Dear regions of silence and shade!

Soft scenes of contentment and ease?
Where I could have pleasingly strayed,
If aught, in her absence, could please.

But where does my Phillida stray?

And where are her grots and her bowers?
Are the groves and the valleys as gay, .
And the shepherds as gentle as ours?
The groves may perhaps be as fair,

And the face of the valleys as fine;
The swains may in manners compare,

But their love is not equal to mine.

EDWARD YOUNG

FROM NIGHT THOUGHTS

NIGHT I

TIRED Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!

He, like the world, his ready visit pays

Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

From short (as usual) and disturbed repose,

I wake: how happy they, who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams

5

ΙΟ

Tumultuous; where my wrecked desponding thought, 10 From wave to wave of fancied misery,

At random drove, her helm of reason lost.

Though now restored, 'tis only change of pain,

(A bitter change!) severer for severe.

The day too short for my distress; and night,
Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is sunshine to the colour of my fate.

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.

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20

Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound! Nor eye, nor list'ning ear, an object finds; Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and nature made a pause; 25 An awful pause! prophetic of her end. And let her prophecy be soon fulfilled; Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more. Silence and darkness! solemn sisters! twins From ancient night, who nurse the tender thought 30 To reason, and on reason build resolve,

(That column of true majesty in man)

Assist me: I will thank you in the grave;

The grave, your kingdom: there this frame shall fall A victim sacred to your dreary shrine.

35 But what are ye? —

Thou, who didst put to flight

Primeval silence, when the morning stars,

Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball;

O Thou, whose word from solid darkness struck That spark, the sun; strike wisdom from my soul; 40 My soul, which flies to Thee, her trust, her treasure, As misers to heir gold, while others rest.

Through this opaque of nature, and of soul,
This double night, transmit one pitying ray,
To lighten, and to cheer. O lead my mind,
45 (A mind that fain would wander from its woe)
Lead it through various scenes of life and death;
And from each scene, the noblest truths inspire.

Nor less inspire my conduct, than my song;
Teach my best reason, reason; my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear:
Nor let the vial of thy vengeance, poured
On this devoted head, be poured in vain.

The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue

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55

Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,

I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,

It is the knell of my departed hours:

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.
It is the signal that demands despatch:

60

How much is to be done? My hopes and fears
Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge

Look down. On what? a fathomless abyss;
A dread eternity! how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How passing wonder He, who made him such!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes !
From diff'rent natures marvellously mixt,
Connection exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguished link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorpt!