ITSrVITATION TO SELBOEKE. 



See, Selborne spreads her boldest beauties round 

 The varied valley, and the mountain ground, 

 "Wildly majestic ! "What is all the pride 

 Of flats, "with loads of ornaments supphed ? — 

 "Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense, 

 Compared with Nature's rude magnificence. 



Arise, my stranger, to these wild scenes haste ; 

 The unfinish'd farm awaits your forming tastoj 

 Plan the pavilion, airy, light, and true ; 

 Through the high arch call in the length'ning view : 

 Expand the forest sloping up the hill ; 

 Swell to a lake the scant, penurious rill ; 

 Extend the vista ; raise the castle moimd 

 In antique taste, with turrets ivy-crown'd : 

 O'er the gay lawn the flow'ry shrub dispread, 

 Or with the blending garden mix the mead ; 

 Bid China's pale, fantastic fence dehght ; 

 Or with the mimic statue trap the sight. 



Oft on some evening, sunny, soft, and stiU, 

 The Muse shaJl lead thee to the beech-grown hill, 

 To spend in tea the cool, refreshing hour, 

 "Where nods in air the pensile, nest-like bower ; * 

 Or where the hermit hangs the straw-clad cell,t 

 Emerfflng gently from the leafy dell, 



* A kiud of iirbour on the aide of a hill, 

 t A grotesque building, contrived by a yonng gentleman, who UBed on 

 occasion to -appear in the character of a hermit. 



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