240 STANZES IRREGULIERS. 



Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show, 

 The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po, 

 The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine 

 Are puddle water all compared with thine ; 

 And Loire's pure streams yet too polluted are 

 With thine, much purer, to compare ; 

 The rapid Garonne and the winding Seine 

 Are both too mean, 



Beloved Dove, with thee 



To vie priority ; 



Nay, Tame and Isis, when conjoin'd, submit, 

 And lay their trophies at thy silver feet. 



O my beloved rocks, that rise 



To awe the earth and brave the skies, 



From some aspiring mountain's crown, 



How dearly do I love, 

 Giddy with pleasure, to look down ; 

 And, from the vales, to view the noble heights above ! 

 O my beloved caves ! from dog-star's heat, 

 And all anxieties, my safe retreat ; 

 What safety, privacy, what true delight, 

 In the artificial night 



Your gloomy entrails make, 



Have I taken, do I take ! 

 How oft, when grief has made me fly, 

 To hide me from society, 

 E'en of my dearest friends, have I, 



In your recesses' friendly shade, 



All my sorrows open laid, 

 And my most secret woes intrusted to your privacy ! 



Lord ! would men let me alone, 

 What an over-happy one 



Should I think myself to be ; 

 Might I in this desert place, 

 (Which most men in discourse disgrace,) 



Live but undisturb'd and free ! 

 Here, in this despised recess, 



Would I, maugre winter's cold, 

 And the summer's worst excess, 

 Try to live out to sixty full years old ; * 

 And, all the while. 



Without an envious eye 

 On any thriving under fortune's smile, 

 Contented live, and then contented die. C. C. 



* This he did not ; for he was born 16SO, and died in ICfe*. See the Account 

 of his Life prefixed. 



