But feeks with pious fpleen fantastic woes,
And for heav'n's fake heav'n's offer'd good foregoes.
Whate❜er's our choice we ftill with pride prefer,
And all who deviate, vainly think muft err:
Clodio in books and abstract notions loft,
Sees none but knaves and fools in honor's post;
Whilft Syphax, fond on fortune's fea to fail,
And boldly drive before the flatt'ring gale,
(Forward her dang❜rous ocean to explore,)
Condemns as cowards thofe who make the shore.
Not fo my friend impartial,-man he views
Useful in what he fhuns as what pursues ;
Sees different turns to gen'ral good confpire,
The hero's paffion and the poet's fire;
Each figure plac'd in nature's wife defign,
With true proportion and exacteft line:
Sees lights and fhades unite in due degree,
And form the whole with faireft fymmetry.
ILENT nymph, with curious eye!
Who, the purple evʼning, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of bufy man,
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet fings;
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the foreft with her tale;
Come with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy fifter Muse 3
Now while Phoebus riding high
Gives luftre to the land and sky!
Grongar Hill invites my fong,
Draw the landskip bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose moffy cells
Sweetly mufing Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose filent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So òft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,
Sate upon a flow'ry bed,
With my hand beneath my head;
While ftray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood,
Over mead, and over wood,
From house to houfe, from hill to hill,
'Till Contemplation had her fill.
About his chequer'd fides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves and grottoes where I lay,
And vistoes shooting beams of day:
Wide and wider spreads the vale;
As circles on a smooth canal;
The mountains round, unhappy fate!.
Sooner or later, all of height,
Withdraw their fummits from the skies,
And leffen as the others rife;
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads,
Still it widens, widens ftill,
And finks the newly-risen hill.
Now, I gain the mountain's brow,
What a landskip lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene,
But the gay, the open scene
Does the face of nature show,
In all the hues of heaven's bow!
And, fwelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the fight.
Old castles on the cliffs arife,
Proudly tow'ring in the skies!
Rushing from the woods, the fpires
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 unnumber'd rife,
Beautiful in various dyes :
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The flender fir, that taper grows,
The sturdy oak, with broad-spread boughs,
And beyond the purple grove,
Haunt of Phillis, queen of love!
Gaudy as the op❜ning dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,
On which a dark hill, fteep and high,
Holds and charms the wand'ring eye!
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,
His fides are cloath'd with waving wood,
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That caft an aweful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps;
So both a fafety from the wind
On mutual dependence find.
'Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
'Tis now th' apartment of the toad,
And there the fox fecurely feeds;
And there the pois'nous adder breeds,
Conceal'd in ruins, mofs and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary moulder'd walls.
Yet time has feen, that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,
Has feen this broken pile compleat,
Big with the vanity of state
But tranfient is the fmile of fate!
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