Pull in the passage of the vale, above,
  A sable, silent, solemn forest stood,
  Where naught but shadowy forms was seen to move,
  As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood;
  And up the hills, on either side, a wood
  Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro,
  Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;
  And where this valley winded out, below,
  The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.

  A pleasing land of drowsyhed it was: 
  Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
  And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
  Forever flushing round a summer sky. 
  There eke the soft delights, that witchingly
  Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,
  And the calm pleasures, always hovered nigh;
  But whate’er smacked of ’noyance or unrest
  Was far, far off expelled from this delicious nest.

  The landskip such, inspiring perfect ease,
  Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight)
  Close-hid his castle mid embowering trees,
  That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright,
  And made a kind of checkered day and night. 
  Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate,
  Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight
  Was placed; and, to his lute, of cruel fate
  And labour harsh complained, lamenting man’s estate.

  Thither continual pilgrims crowded still,
  From all the roads of earth that pass there by;
  For, as they chaunced to breathe on neighbouring hill,
  The freshness of this valley smote their eye,
  And drew them ever and anon more nigh,
  Till clustering round th’ enchanter false they hung,
  Ymolten with his syren melody. 
  While o’er th’ enfeebling lute his hand he flung,
  And to the trembling chords these tempting verses sung: 

  ’Behold, ye pilgrims of this earth, behold! 
  See all but man with unearned pleasure gay! 
  See her bright robes the butterfly unfold,
  Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May. 
  What youthful bride can equal her array? 
  Who can with her for easy pleasure vie? 
  From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray,
  From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly,
  Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.

  ’Behold the merry minstrels of the morn,
  The swarming songsters of the careless grove,
  Ten thousand throats that, from the flowering thorn,
  Hymn their good God and carol sweet of love,
  Such grateful kindly raptures them emove! 
  They neither plough nor sow; ne, fit for flail,
  E’er to the barn the nodding sheaves they drove;
  Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale,
  Whatever crowns the hill or smiles along the vale.

  ’Outcast of Nature, man! the wretched thrall
  Of bitter-dropping sweat, of sweltry pain,
  Of cares that eat away thy heart with gall,
  And of the vices, an inhuman train,
  That all proceed from savage thirst of gain: 
  For when hard-hearted Interest first began
  To poison earth, Astraea left the plain;
  Guile, violence, and murder seized on man,
  And, for soft milky streams, with blood the rivers ran.’