Epistles.
129
Content in shades obscure to waste thy life, 5
A hidden beauty and a country wife?
O! listen while thy summers are my theme,
Ah! sooth thy partner in his waking dream.
In some small hamlet on the lonely plain 9
Where Thames thro' meadows rolls his mazy train,
Or where high Windsor, thick with greens array'd,
Waves his old oaks and spreads his ample shade,
Fancy has figur'd out our calm retreat;
Already round the visionary seat
Our limes begin to shoot, our flow'rs to spring, 15
The brooks to murmur and the birds to sing.
Where dost thou lie thou thinly-peopled green,
Thou nameless lawn and village yet unseen,
Where sons contented with their native ground
Ne'er travell'd further than ten furlongs round, 20
And the tann'd peasant and his ruddy bride
Were born together and together dy'd,
Where early larks best tell the morning light,
And only Philomel disturbs the night?
'Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise, 25
With sweet's surrounded of ten thousand dies;
All savage where th' embroider'd gardens end,
The haunt of Echoes shall my woods ascend;
And oh! if Heav'n th' ambitious thought approve,
A rill shall warble cross the gloomy grove; 30
A little rill, o'er pebbly beds convey'd,
Gush down the steep and glitter thro' the glade.
A hidden beauty and a country wife?
O! listen while thy summers are my theme,
Ah! sooth thy partner in his waking dream.
In some small hamlet on the lonely plain 9
Where Thames thro' meadows rolls his mazy train,
Or where high Windsor, thick with greens array'd,
Waves his old oaks and spreads his ample shade,
Fancy has figur'd out our calm retreat;
Already round the visionary seat
Our limes begin to shoot, our flow'rs to spring, 15
The brooks to murmur and the birds to sing.
Where dost thou lie thou thinly-peopled green,
Thou nameless lawn and village yet unseen,
Where sons contented with their native ground
Ne'er travell'd further than ten furlongs round, 20
And the tann'd peasant and his ruddy bride
Were born together and together dy'd,
Where early larks best tell the morning light,
And only Philomel disturbs the night?
'Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise, 25
With sweet's surrounded of ten thousand dies;
All savage where th' embroider'd gardens end,
The haunt of Echoes shall my woods ascend;
And oh! if Heav'n th' ambitious thought approve,
A rill shall warble cross the gloomy grove; 30
A little rill, o'er pebbly beds convey'd,
Gush down the steep and glitter thro' the glade.
