Who rule the springs of sacred sympathy,
Inform congenial spirits when they meet? 
Sweet is their office, as their natures sweet! 
   Florio, with fearful joy, pursued the maid,
Till thro’ a vista’s moonlight-checquer’d shade,
Where the bat circled, and the rooks repos’d,
(Their wars suspended, and their councils clos’d)
An antique mansion burst in awful state,
A rich vine clustering round the Gothic gate. 
Nor paus’d he there.  The master of the scene
Saw his light step imprint the dewy green;
And, slow-advancing, hail’d him as his guest,
Won by the honest warmth his looks express’d,
He wore the rustic manners of a ’Squire;
Age had not quench’d one spark of manly fire;
But giant Gout had bound him in her chain,
And his heart panted for the chase in vain. 
Yet here Remembrance, sweetly-soothing power! 
Wing’d with delight Confinement’s lingering hour. 
The fox’s brush still emulous to wear,
He scour’d the county in his elbow-chair;
And, with view-halloo, rous’d the dreaming hound,
That rung, by starts, his deep-ton’d music round. 
   Long by the paddock’s humble pale confin’d,
His aged hunters cours’d the viewless wind: 
And each, with glowing energy pourtray’d,
The far-fam’d triumphs of the field display’d: 
Usurp’d the canvas of the crowded hall,
And chas’d a line of heroes from the wall. 
There slept the horn each jocund echo knew. 
And many a smile and many a story drew! 
High o’er the hearth his forest-trophies hung,
And their fantastic branches wildly flung. 
How would he dwell on the vast antlers there! 
These dash’d the wave, those fann’d the mountain-air. 
All, as they frown’d, unwritten records bore,
Of gallant feats and festivals of yore. 
   But why the tale prolong?—­His only child,
His darling Julia on the stranger smil’d. 
Her little arts a fretful sire to please,
Her gentle gaiety, and native ease
Had won his soul; and rapturous Fancy shed
Her golden lights, and tints of rosy red. 
But ah! few days had pass’d, ere the bright vision fled! 
   When evening ting’d the lake’s ethereal blue,
And her deep shades irregularly threw;
Their shifting sail dropt gently from the cove,
Down by St. Herbert’s consecrated grove; [e]
Whence erst the chanted hymn, the taper’d rite
Amus’d the fisher’s solitary night: 
And still the mitred window, richly wreath’d,
A sacred calm thro’ the brown foliage breath’d. 
The wild deer, starting thro’ the silent glade,
With fearful gaze their various course survey’d. 
High hung in air the hoary goat reclin’d,
His streaming beard the sport of every wind;
And, while the coot her jet-wing lov’d to lave,
Rock’d on the bosom of the sleepless wave;
The eagle rush’d from Skiddaw’s purple crest,
   A cloud still brooding o’er her giant-nest. 
And now the moon had dimm’d, with dewy ray.