On the Abuse of Travelling. A Canto, in
Imitation of Spenser,

Page 259

Education. A Poem: written in Imitation of

the Style and Manner of Spenser's Fairy Queen, 281 Father Francis's Prayer. Written in Lord Westmorland's Hermitage,

Inscription in a Summer-house belonging to
Mr. West, at Wickham, in Kent,

318

320

POEMS

1

[325]

ODE ON THE SPRING.

L

O! where the rosy-bosom'd hours,
Fair Venus' train appear,

Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckow's note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner hade;

Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade*,
Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall fit, and think
(At ease reclin'd in ruftic state)

How vain the ardour of the Crowd,
How low, how little are the Proud,
How indigent the Great!

a bank

O'er-canopied with luscious woodbine.

SHAKESP. MIDS. NIGHT'S DREAM.

Still is the toiling hand of Care:

The panting herd's repose :

Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!

The infect youth are on the wing,

Eager to taste the honied spring,

And float amid the liquid noon *:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some shew their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the fun †.

To contemplation's sober eye t
Such is the race of Man :

And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter through life's little day.
In Fortune's varying colours drest:
Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance
They leave in dust to rest.

* " Nare per æstatem liquidam -"

VIRG. GEORG. LIB. IV.

sporting with quick glance

Shew to the fun their waved coats drop'd with gold.
MILTON'S PARADISE LOST, BOOK VII.

While insects from the threshold preach, &c.

M. GREEN, IN THE GROTто. DODSLEY'S MISCELLANIES, VOL. V. P. 161.

Methinks