| |
(From Summer)
SAY, shall we wind | |
| Along the streams? or walk the smiling mead? | |
| Or court the forest glades? or wander wild | |
| Among the waving harvests? or ascend, | |
| While radiant Summer opens all its pride, | 5 |
| Thy hill, delightful Shene? 1 Here let us sweep | |
| The boundless landscape: now the raptured eye, | |
| Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send, | |
| Now to the Sister Hills that skirt her plain, | |
| To lofty Harrow now, and now to where | 10 |
| Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow. | |
| In lovely contrast to this glorious view | |
| Calmly magnificent, then will we turn | |
| To where the silver Thames first rural grows. | |
| There let the feasted eye unwearied stray: | 15 |
| Luxurious, there, rove through the pendant woods | |
| That nodding hang o’er Harrington’s retreat; | |
| And, stopping thence to Ham’s embowering walks, | |
| Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retired, | |
| With her the pleasing partner of his heart, | 20 |
| The worthy Queensberry yet laments his Gay, | |
| And polished Cornbury wooes the willing Muse, | |
| Slow let us trace the matchless vale of Thames; | |
| Fair winding up to where the Muses haunt | |
| In Twit’nam’s bowers, and for their Pope implore | 25 |
| The healing God; to royal Hampton’s pile, | |
| To Clermont’s terraced height, and Esher’s groves, | |
| Where in the sweetest solitude, embraced | |
| By the soft windings of the silent Mole, | |
| From courts and senates Pelham finds repose. | 30 |
| Enchanting vale! beyond whate’er the Muse | |
| Has of Achaia or Hesperia sung! | |
| O vale of bliss! O softly swelling hills! | |
| On which the power of cultivation lies, | |
| And joys to see the wonders of his toil. | 35 |
| Heavens! what a goodly prospect spreads around, | |
| Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires, | |
| And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all | |
| The stretching landscape into smoke decays! | |
| Happy Britannia! where the Queen of Arts, | 40 |
| Inspiring vigor, Liberty abroad | |
| Walks, unconfined, even to thy farthest cots, | |
| And scatters plenty with unsparing hand. | |
