Meadows trim with daisies pied,
  Shallow brooks, and rivers wide,
  Towers and battlements it sees,
  Bosomed high in tufted trees,
  Where perhaps some Beauty lies,
  The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes. 
  Hard by a cottage-chimney smokes
  From betwixt two aged oaks,
  Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met,
  Are at their savoury dinner set
  Of herbs and other country messes,
  Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
  And then in haste her bower she leaves,
  With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
  Or, if the earlier season lead,
  To the tanned haycock in the mead. 
    Sometimes, with secure delight,
  The upland hamlets will invite,
  When the merry bells ring round,
  And the jocund rebecks sound,
  To many a youth and many a maid,
  Dancing in the chequered shade,
  And young and old come forth to play
  On a sunshine holiday,
  Till the live-long daylight fail;
  Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
  With stories told of many a feat,
  How faery Mab the junkets eat;
  She was pinched and pulled, she said;
  And he, by Friar’s lantern led,
  Tells how the drudging goblin sweat,
  To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
  When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
  His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
  That ten day-labourers could not end;
  Then lies him down, the lubber-fiend,
  And, stretched out all the chimney’s length,
  Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
  And crop-full out of doors he flings,
  Ere the first cock his matin rings. 
  Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
  By whispering winds soon lulled asleep. 
    Towered cities please us then,
  And the busy hum of men,
  Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
  In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold,
  With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
  Rain influence, and judge the prize
  Of wit or arms, while both contend
  To win her grace, whom all commend. 
  There let Hymen oft appear
  In saffron robe, with taper clear,
  And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
  With mask and antique pageantry;
  Such sights as youthful poets dream,
  On summer-eves by haunted stream. 
  Then to the well-trod stage anon,
  If Jonson’s learned sock be on,
  Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child,
  Warble his native wood-notes wild. 
    And ever, against eating cares,
  Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
  Married to immortal verse,
  Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
  In notes with many a winding bout
  Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
  With wanton heed and giddy cunning
  The melting voice through mazes running
  Untwisting all the chains that tie
  The hidden soul of harmony;
  That Orpheus’ self may heave his head,
  From golden slumber on a bed
  Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear
  Such strains as would have won the ear
  Of Pluto, to have quite set free
  His half-regained Eurydice. 
    These delights if thou canst give,
  Mirth, with thee I mean to live.