For when thy folding-star, arising, shows
  His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
  The fragrant Hours, and elves
  Who slept in flowers the day,

  And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
  And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,
  The pensive Pleasures sweet,
  Prepare thy shadowy car.

  Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake
  Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile
  Or upland fallows grey
  Reflect its last cool gleam.

  But when chill blustering winds or driving rain
  Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut
  That from the mountain’s side
  Views wilds, and swelling floods,

  And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires,
  And hears their simple bell, and marks o’er all
  Thy dewy fingers draw
  The gradual dusky veil.

  While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
  And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve;
  While Summer loves to sport
  Beneath thy lingering light;

  While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
  Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
  Affrights thy shrinking train,
  And rudely rends thy robes;

  So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed,
  Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipped Health,
  Thy gentlest influence own,
  And hymn, thy favourite name!

  ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER

  STROPHE

  As once—–­if not with light regard
  I read aright that gifted bard
  (Him whose school above the rest
  His loveliest Elfin Queen has blest)—­
  One, only one, unrivalled fair
  Might hope the magic girdle wear,
  At solemn tourney hung on high,
  The wish of each love-darting eye;
  Lo! to each other nymph in turn applied,
  As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand,
  Some chaste and angel friend to virgin fame,
  With whispered spell had burst the starting band,

  It left unblest her loathed, dishonoured side;
  Happier, hopeless fair, if never
  Her baffled hand, with vain endeavour,
  Had touched that fatal zone to her denied! 
  Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name,
  To whom, prepared and bathed in heaven,
  The cest of amplest power is given,
  To few the godlike gift assigns
  To gird their blest, prophetic loins,
  And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmixed her flame!

  EPODE

  The band, as fairy legends say,
  Was wove on that creating day
  When He who called with thought to birth
  Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,
  And dressed with springs and forests tall,
  And poured the main engirting all,
  Long by the loved enthusiast wood,
  Himself in some diviner mood,
  Retiring, sate with her alone,
  And placed her on his sapphire throne,
  The whiles, the vaulted shrine around,