Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/20

For one brief moment would his sorrows lose:
With St. John's converse the slow hours beguile,
And win with song approving Harley's smile.
Yet duly, where the evening willows wave,
Seek the lone grot, and weep o'er Anna's grave.

"Where dost thou flow (methinks his voice I hear),
Thou nameless brook, whose warbles soothe my ear;
Where spread, thou soft and visionary scene,
Thy gentle lawns and sunny slopes of green.
How wild the music steals from yonder vale!
What sweets are breathing in that western gale!
Why gleams thy spire, sweet hamlet yet unknown;
Ah! might I call thy pastoral charms my own!
Find in thy shades the long forsaken lyre,
And wake to nobler flights the sleeping wing of
fire."

So duly as the vernal blossoms smile,
And win to gladness our reluctant isle,
When Venus wakes her loveliest smiles again,
Mounts her bright car, and calls her roseate train;
Charm'd by thy voice, I leave my books and bowers,
Well pleas'd with thee to share the social hours,
Secure to find (so close our fates agree),
The friend, and such as Parnell found, in thee.

Say (for thou know'st), how glides the various day,
How time, with thee conversing, steals away.
And oh! recall (too swift our pleasures fly,)