Who fill'd with unexhaufted fire,
May boldly fmite the founding lyre,
Who with fome new, unequall'd song,
May rife above the rhyming throng.
O'er all our lift'ning paffions reign,
O'erwhelm our fouls with joy and pain:
With terror fhake, and pity move,
Rouze with revenge, or melt with love.
O deign t' attend his evening walk,
With him in groves and grottos talk ;
Teach him to fcorn, with frigid art,
Feebly to touch th' unraptur'd heart;
Like light'ning, let his mighty verse
The bofom's inmoft foldings pierce;
With native beauties win applaufe,
Teyond cold critic's ftudied laws :
O let each Mufe's fame encrease,
O bid Britannia rival Greece.

O DE

ΤΟ

EVENING,

BY THE SAME.

I.

AIL meek-ey'd Maiden, clad in fober grey,
Whose soft approach the weary wood-man

HA

loves;

As homeward bent to kiss his prattling babes,
Jocund he whistles thro' the twilight groves.

II.

When Phæbus finks behind the gilded hills,
You lightly o'er the mifty meadows walk;
The drooping daifies bathe in dulcet dews,
And nurse the nodding violet's flender stalk.

III.

The panting Dryads, that in day's fierce heat
To inmost bow'rs, and cooling caverns ran;
Return to trip in wanton ev'ning dance,
Old Sylvan too returns, and laughing Pan.

IV.

To the deep wood the clamourous rooks repair, Light fkims the swallow o'er the watry scene; And from the sheep-cote, and fresh furrow'd-field, Stout ploughmen meet, to wrestle on the Green.

v.

The fwain, that artlefs fings on yonder rock,
His fupping fheep, and lengthening fhadow fpies;
Pleas'd with the cool the calm refreshful hour,
And with hoarse humming of unnumber'd flies.
VI.

Now every Paffion fleeps: defponding Love,
And pining Envy, ever-restless Pride;
An holy Calm creeps o'er my peaceful foul,
Anger, and mad Ambition's storms fubfide.
VII.

O modeft EVENING! oft let me appear
A wand'ring votary in thy penfive train;
Liftening to every wildly-warbling note,
That fills with farewel fweet thy dark'ning plain.

ODE

ΤΟ

EVENING.

BY MR. WILLIAM COLLINS.

I Fought of oaten stop, or paftoral song,

May hope, chafte Eve, to footh thy modeft ear,
Like thy own folemn fprings,

Thy fprings, and dying gales,

O Nymph referv'd, while now the bright-hair'd fun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Nor air is hufh'd, fave where the weak-ey'd bat, With fhort fhrill fhriek flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds

His fmall but fullen horn,

As oft he rifes 'midft the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim born in heedlefs hum;

Now teach me, Maid compos'd,

To breath fome foften'd ftrain,

Whose numbers stealing thro' thy dark'ning vale,

May not unfeemly with it's ftillnefs fuit,
As mufing flow, I hail

Thy genial lov'd return!

For when thy folding ftar arifing fhews

His paly circlet, at his warning lamp

The fragrant Hours, and Elves

Who flept in flow'rs the day,

And many a Nymph who wreaths her brows with fedge,

And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and lovelier ftill, The Penfive Pleafures fweet

Prepare thy fhadowy car.

Then lead, calm Vot'refs, where fome sheety lake Cheers the lone heath, or fome time-hallow'd pile, Or up-land fallows grey

Reflect it's laft cool gleam.

But when chill bluft'ring winds, or driving rain, Forbid my willing feet; be mine the hut, That from the mountain's fide,

Views wilds, and fwelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires,
And hears their fimple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While fpring fhall pour his show'rs, as oft he wont, And bathe thy breathing treffes, meekest Eve!