No costly furniture should
grace my hall;
But curling vines ascend against the wall,
Whose pliant branches shou’d luxuriant twine,
While purple clusters swell’d with future wine
To slake my thirst a liquid lapse distill,
From craggy rocks, and spread a limpid rill.
Along my mansion spiry firs should grow,
And gloomy yews extend the shady row;
The cedars flourish, and the
Sublimely tall, and shoot into the skies:
Among the leaves refreshing zephyrs play,
And crouding trees exclude the noon-tide ray;
Whereon the birds their downy nests should form,
Securely shelter’d from the batt’ring storm;
And to melodious notes their choir apply,
Soon as Aurora blush’d along the sky:
While all around the enchanting music rings,
And every vocal grove reponsive sings.
Me to sequester’d scenes,
ye muses guide,
Where nature wanton’s in her virgin pride,
To mossy banks, edg’d round with op’ning flow’rs,
Elysian fields and amaranthian bow’rs;
T’ ambrosial founts, and sleep-inspiring rills,
To herbag’d vales, gay lawns, and funny hills.
Welcome ye shades! all hail,
ye vernal blooms
Ye bow’ry thickets, and prophetic glooms!
Ye forests hail! ye solitary woods!
Love-whispering groves and silver-streaming floods!
Ye meads, that aromatic sweets exhale!
Ye birds, and all ye sylvan beauties hail!
Oh how I long with you to spend my days,
Invoke the muse, and try the rural lays!
No trumpets there with martial clangor found, No prostrate heroes strew the crimson’d ground; No groves of lances glitter in the air, Nor thund’ring drums provoke the sanguine war; but white-rob’d peace, and universal love Smile in the field, and brighten, ev’ry grove, There all the beauties of the circling year, In native ornamental pride appear; Gay rosy-bosom’d SPRING, and April show’rs; Wake from the womb of earth the rising flow’rs: In deeper verdure SUMMER clothes the plain, And AUTUMN bends beneath the golden grain; The trees weep amber, and the whispering gales Breeze o’er the lawn, or murmur through the vales: The flow’ry tribes in gay confusion bloom, Profuse of sweets, and fragrant with perfume; On blossoms blossoms, fruits on fruits arise. And varied prospects glad the wand’ring eyes. In these fair seats I’d pass the joyous day, Where meadows flourish and where fields look gay; From bliss to bliss with endless pleasure rove, Seek crystal streams, or haunt the vernal grove, Woods, fountains, lakes, the fertile fields, or shades Aerial mountains, or subjacent glades.
There from the polish’d
fetters of the great,
Triumphal piles, and gilded rooms of state;
Prime ministers, and sycophantic knaves;
Illustrious villains, and illustrious slaves;