He ceased.  But still their trembling ears retained
The deep vibrations of his ’witching song,
That, by a kind of magic power, constrained
To enter in, pell-mell, the listening throng: 
Heaps poured on heaps, and yet they slipped along
In silent ease; as when beneath the beam
Of summer moons, the distant woods among,
Or by some flood all silvered with the gleam,
The soft-embodied fays through airy portal stream.

* * * * *

Of all the gentle tenants of the place,
There was a man of special grave remark;
A certain tender gloom o’erspread his face,
Pensive, not sad; in thought involved, not dark;
As soote this man could sing as morning lark,
And teach the noblest morals of the heart;
But these his talents were yburied stark: 
Of the fine stores he nothing would impart,
Which or boon Nature gave, or nature-painting Art.

  To noontide shades incontinent he ran,
  Where purls the brook with sleep-inviting sound,
  Or when Dan Sol to slope his wheels began,
  Amid the broom he basked him on the ground,
  Where the wild thyme and camomil are found;
  There would he linger, till the latest ray
  Of light sate trembling on the welkin’s bound,
  Then homeward through the twilight shadows stray,
  Sauntering and slow:  so had he passed many a day.

  Yet not in thoughtless slumber were they passed;
  For oft the heavenly fire, that lay concealed
  Beneath the sleeping embers, mounted fast,
  And all its native light anew revealed;
  Oft as he traversed the cerulean field,
  And marked the clouds that drove before the wind,
  Ten thousand glorious systems would he build,
  Ten thousand great ideas filled his mind: 
  But with the clouds they fled, and left no trace behind.

EDWARD YOUNG

  From LOVE OF FAME

  ON WOMEN

  Such blessings Nature pours,
  O’erstocked mankind enjoy but half her stores: 
  In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen,
  She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green: 
  Pure, gurgling rills the lonely desert trace,
  And waste their music on the savage race. 
  Is Nature then a niggard of her bliss? 
  Repine we guiltless in a world like this? 
  But our lewd tastes her lawful charms refuse,
  And painted art’s depraved allurements choose. 
  Such Fulvia’s passion for the town; fresh air
  (An odd effect!) gives vapours to the fair;
  Green fields, and shady groves, and crystal springs,
  And larks, and nightingales, are odious things;
  But smoke, and dust, and noise, and crowds, delight;
  And to be pressed to death, transports her quite: 
  Where silver rivulets play through flowery meads,
  And woodbines give their sweets, and limes their shades,
  Black kennels’ absent odours she regrets,
  And stops her nose at beds of violets.