Rejoice, or more rejoice by Cupid bound;
Of laughing girls in smiling couplets tell,
And paint the dark-brow’d grove, where wood-nymphs dwell;
Who bid invading youths their vengeance feel,
And pierce the votive hearts they mean to heal. 
Such were the themes I knew in school-day ease,
When first the moral magic learn’d to please,
Ere Judgment told how transports warm’d the breast,
Transported Fancy there her stores imprest;
The soul in varied raptures learn’d to fly,
Felt all their force, and never question’d why;
No idle doubts could then her peace molest,
She found delight, and left to heaven the rest;
Soft joys in Evening’s placid shades were born;
And where sweet fragrance wing’d the balmy morn,
When the wild thought roved vision’s circuit o’er,
And caught the raptures, caught, alas! no more: 
No care did then a dull attention ask,
For study pleased, and that was every task;
No guilty dreams stalk’d that heaven-favour’d round,
Heaven-guarded, too, no Envy entrance found;
Nor numerous wants, that vex advancing age,
Nor Flattery’s silver tale, nor Sorrow’s sage;
Frugal Affliction kept each growing dart,
To o’erwhelm in future days the bleeding heart. 
No sceptic art veil’d Pride in Truth’s disguise,
But prayer unsoil’d of doubt besieged the skies;
Ambition, avarice, care, to man retired,
Nor came desires more quick than joys desired. 
   A summer morn there was, and passing fair,
Still was the breeze, and health perfumed the air;
The glowing east in crimson’d splendour shone,
What time the eye just marks the pallid moon,
Vi’let-wing’d Zephyr fann’d each opening flower,
And brush’d from fragrant cups the limpid shower;
A distant huntsman fill’d his cheerful horn,
The vivid dew hung trembling on the thorn,
And mists, like creeping rocks, arose to meet the morn. 
Huge giant shadows spread along the plain,
Or shot from towering rocks o’er half the main,
There to the slumbering bark the gentle tide
Stole soft, and faintly beat against its side;
Such is that sound, which fond designs convey,
When, true to love, the damsel speeds away;
The sails unshaken, hung aloft unfurl’d,
And simpering nigh, the languid current curl’d;
A crumbling ruin, once a city’s pride,
The well-pleased eye through withering oaks descried,
Where Sadness, gazing on time’s ravage, hung,
And Silence to Destruction’s trophy clung —
Save that as morning songsters swell’d their lays,
Awaken’d Echo humm’d repeated praise: 
The lark on quavering pinion woo’d the day,
Less towering linnets fill’d the vocal spray,
And song-invited pilgrims rose to pray. 
Here at a pine-press’d hill’s embroider’d base
I stood, and hail’d the Genius of the place. 
   Then was it doom’d by fate, my idle heart,
Soften’d by Nature, gave access to Art;
The Muse approach’d, her syren-song I heard,