As oft he rises, ’midst the twilight path
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
     Now teach me, maid composed,
     To breathe some soften’d strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
     As, musing slow, I hail
     Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
     The fragrant hours, and elves
     Who slept in buds the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,
     The pensive pleasures sweet,
     Prepare thy shadowy car:

Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or some time- hallow’d pile,
     Or upland fallows grey
     Reflect its last cool gleam.

Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
     That from the mountain’s side
     Views wilds and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover’d spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o’er all
     Thy dewy fingers draw
     The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his show’rs, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
     While Summer loves to sport
     Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
     Affrights thy shrinking train,
     And rudely rends thy robes:

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipp’d Health
     Thy gentlest influence own,
     And hymn thy favourite name!

472   Fidele

TO fair Fidele’s grassy tomb
   Soft maids and village hinds shall bring
Each opening sweet of earliest bloom,
     And rifle all the breathing Spring.

No wailing ghost shall dare appear
   To vex with shrieks this quiet grove;
But shepherd lads assemble here,
   And melting virgins own their love.

No wither’d witch shall here be seen,
   No goblins lead their nightly crew;
The female fays shall haunt the green,
   And dress thy grave with pearly dew.

The redbreast oft at evening hours
   Shall kindly lend his little aid,
With hoary moss, and gather’d flowers,
   To deck the ground where thou art laid.

When howling winds, and beating rain,
   In tempests shake thy sylvan cell;
Or’midst the chase, on every plain,
   The tender thought on thee shall dwell;

Each lonely scene shall thee restore,
   For thee the tear be duly shed;
Beloved, till life can charm no more;
   And mourn’d, till Pity’s self be dead.