269 STANZES IRREGULIERS. 



VI. 



Oh my beloved nymph, fair Dove ; 

 Princess of rivers, how I love 



Upon thy flowery bank* 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 of treachery 

 I ever learnt, industriously to try. 



Such streams Hume's yellow Tyber cannot show, 

 The Iberian Tag us, or Ligurian Po, 

 The Ifaese, 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 ; 

 y, Tame and Isis, when conioit 

 And lay their trophies at thy silver feet. 



Nay, Tame and Ii, when conjom'd, submit. 



Oh my beloved rocks ! that rise 



To awe the earth and brave the skies, 



Prom 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 I 

 Oh my beloved caves ! from dog-stars heat 

 And all anxieties, my safe retreat: 

 What safety, privacy, what true delight, 

 In the ailificial night. 

 Your gloomy entrails make, 



Have I taken, do I take ! 

 How oft when grief has made me fly, 

 To hide me from society 

 Ev'n 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 I 



IX. 



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 nndistnrb'd and free I 

 Here, in this despit'd recess, 



Would I, maugre winter's cold, 

 And the summer's worst excess, 

 Try to live-out to sixty full years old ; i :\ 

 And, all the while, 



Without an envious eye 



On any thriving under fortune's smile, 

 Contented live, and then, contented die. 



C. C. 



(1) Tun he did not; for he was born 1030, aud died in 1067. Sre the 

 Actou*t of kit lAfe prefixed. 



