“Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum

Taurus, et adverso cedens Canis occidit astro.”

—VIRGIL.

Ye bare-branch’d groves, and herbage dank and cold,

Ye matted leaves, and vapour-breathing mould;

Ye dripping heav’ns, that weep for Nature’s pain,

And mourn detested Winter’s boreal reign:

Hark to the note that thrills the languid air,

And bids exhausted Earth discard her care!

Pan, drunk with Autumn grapes, and stretch’d at length

Upon the plain, a thing of slumb’ring strength,

Feels the returning sun; and as a beam

His curtain’d eye creeps o’er, and breaks his dream,

Turns in his leafy blanket, eyes the mead,

And stirs to sound once more the sylvan reed.

Delighted Nature hears, and from each vale

A faery band the genial season hail;

Join in the dance, and o’er the eager trees

Lay sweet enchantment; while from Western seas

Mild Zephyrus attends the call, and strows

The greening vale with flow’rs of various hues.

Borne on soft Auster’s warm aerial tide,

The feather’d race in gay-plum’d grandeur ride;

With gladsome carolling delight the plains,

And sing eternal youth in moving strains.

Fresh with the nectar of the melting hills,

The cool sequester’d fountain pours its rills;

Swift flow the streamlets from the reed-grown urn,

Raising along the marge the timid fern,

Whisp’ring of joy to primrose-haunted shades,

And gaily gleaming thro’ the forest glades.

O’er the damp wold Apollo’s shafts descend

In golden show’rs, that mercifully rend

The Python chill of Winter, whose dread pow’r

So lately coil’d about the budding bow’r.

Meanwhile his rays inspire the grateful peak,

Soothe the green valleys, and the woods bedeck;

Gild all creation with a vernal light

That blends with each glad scent and sound and sight.

Now shine the hills, and valleys stretch’d between,

And willow-fringed brooks, and groves of green;

Whilst in yon hollow ‘twixt the shelt’ring crests,

The dear familiar hamlet calmly rests:

In each bright roof and glitt’ring spire we trace

A heighten’d charm, and more than usual grace.

Now wind the verdant lanes, grass-carpeted,

Where with their flocks the sprightly shepherds tread,

Thence bound for sunny uplands, there to lie

At ease beneath the azure April sky:

O’er flow’ry slopes the nibbling lambkins play,

While the young shepherds dream the hours away.

Now bloom the hedges, and the rolling mead

Where placid kine in tinkling comfort feed;

Now wake the fields, whose earthly face must know

The useful plough, and bounteous harvests grow.

Ungrateful Man! who can such boons despise,

Nor view the rural realm with raptur’d eyes!

How dull the bard who flouts a pastoral theme,

And scans his soul for some obscurer dream,

Neglects the world for things he ne’er can see,

And scorns the splendour of simplicity!

Vain is his lay, whose narrow fancy clings

To urban trifles, and unnatural things;

Glows with false flame, and morbidly repeats

Impassion’d nothings and chaotic heats:

To sylvan scenes the fav’ring Nine belong,

And smile their sweetest on the shepherd’s song!

So let me seek for Beauty in the dawn

Of April days, or on the dew-deck’d lawn

That sleeps beneath Arcturus’ evening light,

Or in the watches of the vernal night.

Let the fond lyre each verdurous bow’r explore,

And sing the Nereids of the quiet shore;

The languorous Dryads, and the Satyrs fleet,

And bearded Pan, who leaps with cloven feet;

And nymphs and clowns that chant Arcadian strains

At twilight thro’ the farmers’ teeming plains.

Let me for Beauty seek far from the strife

Of with’ring commerce, and congested life,

Where primal Nature wakes spontaneous fire,

And golden fancies rouse the living lyre.

No walls but hills the poet’s shrine must own;

No roof besides the vernal sky alone;

No altar-flame but Phoebus, or the blaze

Of his pale sister’s soft nocturnal rays;

No tapers but the stars must light the fane;

No incense must the sacred air sustain

But that which rises from th’ unfolding woods,

And flow’ring banks, and spangled solitudes,

No hymnic strains but those of singing birds,

Or rippling brooks, or gently lowing herds,

Or pensive croonings of the fragrant breeze

In the tall rushes and Aeolian trees.

So the young poet, at the close of day,

Sang from the pansied slope whereon he lay,

His eyes fix’d on the prospect wide around,

Of nodding groves, and cowslip-cover’d ground,

And glinting streams, red with the sunset fires,

And cottage roofs, and slender village spires,

And verdant hillocks, gaily blossoming

With the sweet tokens of the early spring:

He paus’d, enraptur’d by the vernal view,

Then in sublimer strains burst forth anew!