But doubly pitying Nature loves to show’r
Soft on his wounded heart her healing
pow’r,
Who plods o’er hills and vales his
road forlorn, 15
Wooing her varying charms from eve to
morn.
No sad vacuities his heart annoy,
Blows not a Zephyr but it whispers joy;
For him lost flowers their idle sweets
exhale;
He tastes the meanest note that swells
the gale; 20
For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn,
And peeps the far-off spire, his evening
bourn!
Dear is the forest frowning o’er
his head,
And dear the green-sward to his velvet
tread;
Moves there a cloud o’er mid-day’s
flaming eye? 25
Upward he looks—and calls it
luxury;
Kind Nature’s charities his steps
attend,
In every babbling brook he finds a friend,
While chast’ning thoughts of sweetest
use, bestow’d
By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road.
30
Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide
bow’r,
To his spare meal he calls the passing
poor;
He views the Sun uprear his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive like [B] Memnon’s
lyre;
Blesses the Moon that comes with kindest
ray 35
To light him shaken by his viewless way.
With bashful fear no cottage children
steal
From him, a brother at the cottage meal,
His humble looks no shy restraint impart,
Around him plays at will the virgin heart.
40
While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
The maidens eye him with inquiring glance,
Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing
Care
Or desperate Love could lead a wanderer
there.
Me, lur’d by hope her sorrows to remove, 45 A heart, that could not much itself approve, O’er Gallia’s wastes of corn dejected led, [C] Her road elms rustling thin above my head, Or through her truant pathway’s native charms, By secret villages and lonely farms, 50 To where the Alps, ascending white in air, Toy with the Sun, and glitter from afar.
Ev’n now I sigh at hoary Chartreuse’
doom
Weeping beneath his chill of mountain
gloom.
Where now is fled that Power whose frown
severe 55
Tam’d “sober Reason”
till she crouch’d in fear?
That breath’d a death-like peace
these woods around
Broke only by th’ unvaried torrent’s
sound,
Or prayer-bell by the dull cicada drown’d.
The cloister startles at the gleam of
arms, 60
And Blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms;
Nod the cloud-piercing pines their troubl’d
heads,
Spires, rocks, and lawns, a browner night
o’erspreads.
Strong terror checks the female peasant’s
sighs,
And start th’ astonish’d shades
at female eyes. 65
The thundering tube the aged angler hears,
And swells the groaning torrent with his