374; STANZES IRREGULIERS. 



Oh, ye rallies, Oh, ye mountains ! 

 Oh, ye groves, and chrystal fountains ! 



How I love, at liberty, 

 By turns to come and visit ye ! 



17. 



Dear solitude ! the soul's best friend ; 

 That man, acquainted with himself, dost make, 

 And all his Maker's wonder, to intend ; 

 With thee I here converse at will, 

 And would be glad to do so still, 

 For it is thou, alone, that keep'st the soul awake. 



V. 



How calm and quiet a delight . 



Is it, alone, 

 To read, and meditate, and write, 



By none offended, and offending none ? 

 To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease ! 

 And, pleasing a man's self, none other to displease. 



VI. 



Oh my beloved nymph, fair Dove ! 

 Princess of rivers! how I love 



Upon thy flow'ry banks to lie ; 

 And view thy silver stream, 

 When gilded by a summer's beam, 



And in it, all thy wanton fry, 



Playing at liberty; 

 And, with my angle, upon them 

 The all cf treachery 



I ever learnt, industriously to try. 



VII. 



Such streams Rome's yellow Tyler cannot showj 

 The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po : 

 The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine, 

 Are puddle-water, all, compar'd with thine: 

 And Loire's pure streams, yet, too polluted are 

 With thine much purer, to compare : 



