And while the maple dish is mine,
The beechen cup, unstained with wine, –
I scorn the gay licentious crowd,
Nor heed the toys that deck the proud.
Within my limits, lone and still,
The black bird pipes in artless trill;
Fast by my couch, congenial guest,
The wren has wove her inossy nest ;
From busy scenes and brighter skies,
To lurk with innocence, she flies,
Here hopes in safe repose to dwell,
Nor aught suspects the sylvan cell.
At morn I take my customed round,
To mark how buds yon shrubby mound,
And every opening primrose count,
That trimly paints my blooming mount;
Or o'er the sculptures, quaint and rude,
That grace my gloomy solitude,
I teach in winding wreaths to stray
Fantastic ivy's gadding spray.
At eve, within yon studious nook,
I ope my brass-embosséd book,
Portrayed with many a holy deed
Of martyrs, crowned with heavenly meed.
Then, as my taper waxes dim,
Chant, ere I sleep, my measured hymn,
And, at the close, the gleams behold
of parting wings, be-dropt with gold.
While such pure joys my bliss create,
Who but would smile at guilty state ?
Who but would wish his holy lot
In calm oblivion's humble grot ?
Who but would cast his poinp away,
To take my staff, and amice gray ;
And to the world's tumultuous stage
Prefer the blameless hermitage ?

THOMAS WARTON.

COME TO THESE SCENES OF PEACE.

Come to these scenes of peace,
Where, to rivers murmuring,
The sweet birds all the summer sing,
Where cares and toil and sadness cease!
Stranger, does thy heart deplore
Friends whom thou wilt see no more?
Does thy wounded spirit prove
Pangs of hopeless, severed love ?
Thee the stream that gushes clear,
Thee the birds that carol near,
Shall soothe, as silent thou dost lie
And dream of their wild lullaby ;
Come to bless these scenes of peace,
Where cares and toil and sadness cease.

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES

By thirty hills I hurry down,

Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,

And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow

To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.

(The Vale of the Towy embraces, in its winding course of file teen miles, some of the loveliest scenery of South Wales. If it be less cultivated than the Vale of Usk, its woodland views are more romantic and frequent. The neighborhood is historic and poetic ground. From Grongar Hill the eye discovers traces of a Roman Camp; Golden Grove, the home of Jeremy Taylor, is on the opposite side of the river ; Merlin's chair recalls Spenser; and a farm-house near the foot of Llanguminor Hill brings back the meraory of its once genial occupant, Richard Steele. Spenser places the cave of Merlin among the dark woods of Dinevawr.]

I chatter over stony ways,

In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays,

I babble on the pebbles. With many a curve my banks I fret

By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow. I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river ;
For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.
I wind about, and in and out,

With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,

And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake

Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak

Above the golden gravel,

SILENT nymph, with curious eye !
Who, the purple evening, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man,
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings,
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale,
Come, with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy sister Muse.
Now, while Phæbus, riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky,
Grongar Hill invites my song,
Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells
Sweet!y musing Quiet dwells ;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rili,
Sat upon a flowery bed,
With my hand beneath my head,
While strayed my eyes o'er Towy's flood,
Over mead and over wood,
From house to house, from hill to hill,
Till Contemplation had her fill.

About his checkered sides I wind,

And draw them all along, and flow

To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.

And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves and grottos where I lay,
And vistas shooting beams of day.
Wide and wider spreads the vale,
As circles on a smooth canal.
The mountains round, unhappy fate !
Sooner or later, of all height,
Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise.
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads ;
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly risen hill.

Now I gain the mountain's brow;
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapors intervene ;
But the gay, the open scene
Does the face of Nature show
In all the hues of heaven's bow !
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.

Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly towering in the skies;
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires ;
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads,
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks.

Below me trees unnumbered rise,
Beautiful in various dyes :
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir that taper grows,
The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs ;
And beyond, the purple grove,
Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love !
Gaudy as the opening dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,
On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wandering eye;
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood :
His sides are clothed with waving wood;
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps ;
So both, a safety from the wind
In mutual dependence find.
"T is now the raven's bleak abode ;
'T is now the apartment of the toad ;
And there the fox securely feeds ;
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds ;
While, ever and anon, there fall
Huge heaps of hoary, mouldered wall ;
Yet Time has seen that lifts the low
And level lays the lofty brow -

“Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,

Who have been buying, selling, Go back to Yarrow ; 't is their own,

Each maiden to her dwelling! On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,

Hares couch, and rabbits burrow ! But we will downward with the Tweed,

Nor turn aside to Yarrow. “There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs,

Both lying right before us ; And Dryborough, where with chiming Tweed

The lintwhites sing in chorus ; There's pleasant Teviot-dale, a land

Made blithe with plough and harrow : Why throw away a needful day

To go in search of Yarrow ? “What's Yarrow but a river bare,

That glides the dark hills under ? There are a thousand such elsewhere,

As worthy of your wonder." Strange words they seemed, of slight and scorn;

My true-love sighed for sorrow, And looked me in the face, to think

I thus could speak of Yarrow ! “0, green,” said I, “are Yarrow's holms,

And sweet is Yarrow flowing ! Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,

But we will leave it growing. O'er hilly path and open strath

We'll wander Scotland thorough ; But, though so near, we will not turn

Into the dale of Yarrow,

“Let beeves and homebred kine partake

The sweets of Burn Mill meadow ; The swan still on St. Mary's Lake

Float double, swan and shadow !