ODE TO THE FIRST OF APRIL.

Witu dalliance rude young Zephyr wooes
Coy May. Full oft with kind excuse
The boisterous boy the fair denies,
Or with a scornful smile complies.

Mindful of disaster past,
And shrinking at the northern blast,
The sleety storm returning still,
The morning hoar, and evening chill;
Reluctant comes the timid Spring.
Scarce a bee, with airy ring,
Murmurs the blossom'd boughs around,
That clothe the garden's southern bound :
Scarce a sickly straggling flower,
Decks the rough castle's rifted tower:
Scarce the hardy primrose peeps
From the dark dell's entangled steeps ;
O'er the fields of waving broom
Slowly shoots the golden bloom :
And, but by fits, the furze-clad dale
Tinctures the transitory gale.
While from the shrubbery's naked maze,
Where the vegetable blaze
of Flora's brightest 'broidery shone,
Every chequer'd charm is flown;
Save that the lilac hangs to view
Its bursting gems in clusters blue.

Scant along the ridgy land
The beans their new-born ranks expand :
The fresh-turn'd soil with tender blades
Thinly the sprouting barley shades :
Fringing the forest's devious edge,
Half-rob'd appears the hawthorn hedgo;
Or to the distant eye displays
Weakly green its budding sprays.

The swallow, for a moment seen,
Skims in haste the village green ;
From the grey moor, on feeble wing,
The screar..ing plovers idly spring :
The butterfly, gay-painted soon,
Explores awhile the tepid noon:
And fondly trusts its tender dyes
To fickle suns, and flattering skies.

Fraught with a transient, frozen shower,
If a cloud should haply lower,
Sailing o'er the landscape dark,
Mute on a sudden is the lark;
But when gleams the Sun again
O'er the pearl-besprinkled plain,
And from behind his watery veil
Looks through the thin descending hail;
She mounts, and, lessening to the sight,
Salutes the blithe return of light,
And high her tuneful track pursues .
'Mid the dim rainbow's scatter'd hues.

Where in venerable rows
Widely-waving oaks inclose
The moat of yonder antique hall,
Swarm the rooks with clamorous call;
And to the toils of nature true,
Wreath their capacious nests anew.

Musing through the lawny park,
The lonely poet loves to mark
How various greens in faint degrees

Tinge the tall groups of various trees;
While, careless of the changing year,
The pine cerulean, never sere,

Towers distinguish'd from the rest,
And proudly vaunts her winter vest.

Within some whispering osier isle,
Where Glym's* low banks neglected smile;
And each trim meadow still retains
The wintry torrent's oozy stains :
Beneath a willow, long forsook,
The fisher seeks his custom'd nook ;
And bursting through the crackling sedge,
That crowns the current's cavern'd edge,
He startles from the bordering wood
The bashful wild-duck's early brood.

O'er the broad downs, a novel race,
Frisk the lambs with faltering pace,
And with eager bleatings fill
The foss that skirts the beacon'd hill.

His free-born vigor yet unbroke
To lordly man's usurping yoke,
The bounding colt forgets to play,
Basking beneath the noontide ray,
And stretch'd among the daisies pied
Of a green dingle's sloping side :
While far beneath, where Nature spreads
Her boundless length of level meads,
In loose luxuriance taught to stray,
A thousand tumbling rills inlay
With silver veins the vale, or pass
Redundant through the sparkling grass.

Yet, in these presages rude,
'Midst her pensive solitude,
Fancy, with prophetic glance,
Sees the teeming months advance;
The field, the forest, green and gay,
The dappled slope, the tedded hay;
Sees the reddening orchard blow,
The harvest wave, the vintage flow;
Sees June unfold his glossy robe
of thousand hues o'er all the globe ;
Sees Ceres grasp her crown of corn,
And plenty load her ample horn.

ODE.

THE CRUSADE.

BOUND for holy Palestine,
Nimbly we brush'd the level brine,
All in azure steel array'd;
O'er the wave our weapons play'd,
And made the dancing billows glow;
High upon the trophied prow,
Many a warrior-minstrel swung
His sounding harp, and boldly sung:

“Syrian virgins, wail and weep,
English Richard plows the deep!
Tremble, watchmen, as ye spy
From distant towers, with anxious eye,

“Why did I sell my college life,”
He cries, " for benefice and wife?
Return, ye days, when endless pleasure
I found in reading, or in leisure !
When calm around the common room
I puff’d my daily pipe's perfume !
Rode for a stomach, and inspected,
At annual bottlings, corks selected :
And din'd untax'd, untroubled, under
The portrait of our pious founder!
When impositions were supplied
To light my pipe-or soothe my pride-
No cares were then for forward peas,
A yearly-longing wife to please;
My thoughts no christ'ning dinners crost,
No children cried for butter'd toast ;
And ev'ry night I went to bed,
Without a modus in my head!"

Oh! trilling head, and fickle heart!
Chagrin'd at whatsoe'er thou art;
A dupe to follies yet untried,
And sick of pleasures, scarce enjoy'd !
Each prize possess'd, thy transport ceases,
And in pursuit alone it pleases.

INSCRIPTION IN A HERMITAGE,

AT ANSLEY HALL, IN WARWICKSHIRE.

Would some snug benefice but fall,
Ye feasts, ye dinners! farewell all!
To offices I'd bid adieu,
Of dean, vice præs.—of bursar too;
Come joys, that rural quiet yields,
Come, tythes, and house, and fruitful fields!”

Too fond of freedom and of ease
A patron's vanity to please,
Long-time he watches, and by stealth,
Each frail incumbent's doubtful health ;
At length, and in his fortieth year,
A living drops—iwo hundred clear!
With breast elate beyond expression,
He hurries down to take possession,
With rapture views the sweet retreat-
“Whai a convenient house! how neat!
For fuel here's sufficient wood:
Pray God the cellars may be good !
The garden that must be new-plann'd-
Shall these old-fashion'd yew-trees stand ?
O'er yonder vacant plot shall rise
The flow'ry shrub of thousand dyes :-
Yon wall, that feels the southern ray,
Shall blush with ruddy fruitage gay:
While thick beneath its aspect warm
O'er well-rang'd hives the bees shall swarm,
From which, ere long, of golden gleam
Metheglin's luscious juice shall stream:
This awkward hut, o'ergrown with ivy,
We'll alter to a modern privy:
Up yon green slope, of hazels trim,
An avenue so cool and dim
Shall to an arbor at the end,
In spite of gout, entice a friend.
My predecessor lov'd devotion-
But of a garden had no notion."

Continuing this fantastic farce on,
He now commences country parson.
To make his character entire,
He weds—a cousin of the 'squire,
Not over-weighty in the purse;
But many doctors have done worse :
And though she boasts no charms divine,
Yet she can carve and make birch-wine.

Thus fixt, content he taps his barrel,
Exhorts his neighbors not to quarrel;
Finds his church-wardens have discerning
Both in good liquor and good learning;
With tythes his barns replete he sees,
And chuckles o'er his surplice sees;
Studies to find out latent dues,
And regulates the state of pews;
Rides a sleek mare with purple housing,
To share the monthly club's carousing;
Of Oxford pranks facetious, tells,
And—but on Sundays—hears no bells;
Sends presents of his choicest fruit,
And prunes himself each sa pless shoot;
Plants canliflowers, and boasts to rear
The earliest melons of the year;
Thinks alteration charning work is,
Keeps Bantam cocks, and feeds his turkeys ;
Builds in his copse a fav'rite bench,
And stores the pond with carp and tench.-

But ah! too soon his thoughtless breast
By cares domestic is opprest;
And a third butcher's bill, and brewing,
Threaten inevitable ruin:
For children fresh expenses yet,
And Dicky now for school is fit.

BENEATH this stony roof reclin'd,
I soothe to peace my pensive mind;
And while, to shade my lowly cave,
Embowering elms their umbrage wave;
And while the maple dish is mine,
The beechen cup, unstain'd with wine;
I scorn the gay licentious crowd,
Nor heed the toys that deck the proud.

Within my limits lone and still,
The blackbird pipes in artless trill;
Fast by my couch, congenial guest,
The wren has wove her mossy nest;
From busy scenes, and brighter skies,
To lurk with innocence, she flies :
Here hopes in sase repose to dwell,
Nor aught suspects the sylvan cell.

At morn I take my custom'd 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-embossed book,
Portray'd with many a holy deed
Of martyrs, crown'd with heavenly meed ·
Then as my taper waxes dim,
Chant, ere I sleep, my measur'd hymn;
And at the close, the gleams behold
of parting wings bedropt with gold.

While such pure joys my bliss create, Who but would smile al guilty state ?

ODE SENT TO A FRIEND,

Who but would wish his holy lot
In calm Oblivion's humble grot?
Who but would cast his pomp away,
To take my staff, and amice grey;*
And to the world's tumultuous stage
Prefer the blameless hermitage ?

ODE.

THE HAMLET.

WRITTEN IN WHICHWOOD FOREST.

The hinds how blest, who ne'er beguil'd
To quit their hamlet's hawthorn wild;
Nor haunt the crowd, nor tempt the main,
For splendid care, and guilty gain!

When morning's twilight-tinctur'd beam
Strikes their low thatch with slanting gleam,
Thoy rove abroad in ether blue,
To dip the scythe in fragrant dew;
The sheaf to bind, the beech to fell,
That nodding shades a craggy dell.

'Midst gloomy glades, in warbles clear,
Wild nature's sweetest notes they hear :
On green untrodden banks they view
The hyacinth's neglected hue :
In their lone haunts, and woodland rounds,
They spy the squirrel's airy bounds,
And startle from her ashen spray,
Across the glen, the screaming jay :
Each native charm their steps explore
Of Solitude's sequester'd store.

For them the Moon with cloudless ray
Mounts, to illume their homeward way:
Their weary spirits to relieve,
The meadow's incense breathe at eve.
No riot mars the simple fare,
That o'er a glimmering hearth they share :
But when the curfew's measur'd roar
Duly, the darkening valleys o'er,
Has echoed from the distant town,
They wish no beds of cygnet-down,
No trophied canopies, to close
Their drooping eyes in quick repose.

Their little sons, who spread the bloom
Of health around the clay-built room,
Or through the primros'd coppice stray,
Or gambol in the new-mown hay;
Or quaintly braid the cowslip twine,
Or drive afield the tardy kine;
Or hasten from the sultry hill
To loiter at the shady rill;
Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest,
To rob the raven's ancient nest.

Their humble porch with honied flow'rs
The curling woodbine's shade embow'rs :
From the small garden's thymy mound
Their bees in busy swarms resound :
Nor fell Disease, before his time,
Hastes to consume life's golden prime:
But when their temples long have wore
The silver crown of iresses hoar;
As studious still calm peace to keep,
Beneath a flowery turf they sleep.

ON HIS LEAVING A FAVORITE VILLAGE DE

HAMPSHIRE.
An mourn, thou lov'd retreat! No more
Shall classic steps thy scenes explore!
When morn's pale rays but faintly peep
O'er yonder oak-crown'd airy steep,
Who now shall climb its brows to view
The length of landscape, ever new,
Where Summer flings, in careless pride,
Her varied vesture far and wide ?
Who mark, beneath, each village-charm,
Or grange, or elm-encircled farm :
The flinty dove-cole's crowded roof,
Watch'd by the kite that sails aloof:
The tufted pines, whose umbrage tall
Darkens the long-deserted hall:
The veteran beech, that on the plain
Collects at eve the playful train:
The cot that smokes with early fire,
The low-roofd fane's embosom'd spire !

Who now shall indolently stray
Through the deep forest's tangled way;
Pleas'd at his custom'd task to find
The well-known hoary-tressed hind,
That toils with feeble hands to glean
Of wither'd boughs his pittance mean!
Who 'mid thy nooks of hazel sit,
Lost in some melancholy fit;
And listening to the raven's croak,
The distant flail, the falling oak?
Who, through the sun-shine and the shower.
Descry the rainbow-painted tower?
Who, wandering at return of May,
Catch the first cuckoo's vernal lay?
Who musing waste the summer hour,
Where high o'er-arching trees embower
The grassy lane, so rarely pac'd,
With azure flow'rets idly grac'd ?
Unnotic'd now, at twilight's dawn
Returning reapers cross the lawn;
Nor fond attention loves to note
The wether's bell from folds remote :
While, own'd by no poetic eye,
Thy pensive evenings shade the sky!

For lo! the Bard who rapture found In every rural sight or sound; Whose genius warm, and judgment chasle, No charm of genuine nature pass'd; Who felt the Muse's purest fires, Far from thy favor'd haunt retires; Who peopled all thy vocal bowers With shadowy shapes, and airy powers.

Behold, a dread repose resumes, As erst, thy sad sequester'd glooms! From the deep dell, where shaggy roots Fringe the rough brink with wreathed shois. Th' unwilling genius flies forlorn, His primrose chaplet rudely torn. With hollow shriek the nymphs forsake The pathless copse and hedge-row brake: Where the delvid mountains headlong side Its chalky entrails opens wide, On the green summit, ambush'd high, No longer Echo loves to lie. No pearl-crown'd maids with wily look, Rise beckoning from the reedy brook.

* Grey clothing, from the Latin verb amicio, to clothe.