CLIFTON GROVE. 



Can rear a garden in the desert waste. 

 How lovely, from this hill's superior height, 

 Spreads the wide view before my straining sight ! 

 O'er many a varied mile of lengthening ground, 

 E'en to the blue-ridged hill's remotest bound 

 'Sly ken is borne, while o'er my head serene 

 The silver moon illumes the niistj' scene, 

 Xo'.v shining clear, now darkening in the glade, 

 In all the soft varieties of shade. 



Seliind me, lo ! the peaceful hamlet lies ; 



The drowsy god has seal'd the cottar's eyes. 



No more, where late the social faggot blazed, 



The vacant peal resounds, by little raised ; 



But, lock'd in silence, o'er Arion's* star 



The slumbering night rolls on her velvet ear ; 



The church-bell tolls, deep-sounding down the glads, 



The solemn hour, for walking spectres made ; 



The simple ploughboy, wakening with the sound, 



Listens aghast, and turns him startled round, 



7'hen stops his ears, and strives to close his eyes, 



Lest at the sound some grisly ghost should rise. 



Now ceased the long, the monitory toll. 



Returning silence stagnates in the soul ; 



Save when, disturbed by dreams, with wild affright, 



The deep-moutli'd mastiii bays the troubled night ; 



Or where the village ale-house crowns the vale, 



The creaking sign-post wh.istles to the gale. 



A little onward let me bend my way, 



"Where the moss'd seat invites the traveller's stay. 



That spot, oh ! yet it is the very same ; 



That hawthorn gives it shade, and gave it name ; 



There yet the primrose opes its earliest bloom, 



There yet the violet sheds its first perfume. 



And in the branch that rears above the rest 



The robin unmolested builds its nest. 



'Twas here, when Hope, presiding o'er my breast, 



In vivid colours every prospect drest ; 



l" * The Constellation Deliliinus. Tor authority for this app'-llali 

 tide Ovid'i Fasti, B. xi., 113. 



