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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539243" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Pastoral Ode. To the Hon. Sir Richard Lyttleton</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The morn dispensed a dubious light,<br>A sudden mist had stolen from sight<br>Each pleasing vale and hill;<br>When Damon left his humble bowers,<br>To guard his flocks, to fence his flowers,<br>Or check his wandering rill.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though school'd from Fortune's paths to fly,<br>The swain beneath each lowering sky<br>Would oft his fate bemoan,<br>That he, in sylvan shades forlorn,<br>Must waste his cheerless even and morn,<br>Nor praised, nor loved, nor known.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No friend to Fame's obstreperous noise,<br>Yet to the whispers of her voice,<br>Soft murmuring, not a foe:<br>The pleasures he through choice declined,<br>When gloomy fogs depress'd his mind,<br>It grieved him to forego.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Grieved him to lurk the lakes beside,<br>Where coots in rushy dingles hide,<br>And moorcocks shun the day;<br>While caitiff bitterns, undismay'd,<br>Remark the swain's familiar shade,<br>And scorn to quit their prey.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But see the radiant sun once more,<br>The brightening face of heaven restore,<br>And raise the doubtful dawn;<br>And, more to gild his rural sphere,<br>At once the brightest train appear<br>That ever trod the lawn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Amazement chill'd the shepherd's frame,<br>To think Bridgewater's honour'd name<br>Should grace his rustic cell;<br>That she, on all whose motions wait<br>Distinction, titles, rank, and state,<br>Should rove where shepherds dwell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But true it is, the generous mind,<br>By candour sway'd, by taste refined,<br>Will nought but vice disdain;<br>Nor will the breast where fancy glows,<br>Deem every flower a weed that blows<br>Amid the desert plain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beseems it such, with honour crown'd,<br>To deal its lucid beams around,<br>Nor equal meed receive;<br>At most such garlands from the field,<br>As cowslips, pinks, and pansies, yield,<br>And rural hands can weave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet strive, ye shepherds! strive to find,<br>And weave the fairest of the kind,<br>The prime of all the spring;<br>If haply thus you lovely fair<br>May, round her temples, deign to wear<br>The trivial wreaths you bring.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O how the peaceful halcyons play'd,<br>Where'er the conscious lake betray'd<br>Athena's placid mien!<br>How did the sprightlier linnets throng,<br>Where Paphia's charms required the song,<br>'Mid hazel copses green!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lo, Dartmouth on those banks reclined,<br>While busy Fancy calls to mind<br>The glories of his line!<br>Methinks my cottage rears its head,<br>The ruin'd walls of yonder shed,<br>As through enchantment, shine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But who the nymph that guides their way?<br>Could ever nymph descend to stray<br>From Hagley's famed retreat?<br>Else, by the blooming features fair,<br>The faultless make, the matchless air,<br>'Twere Cynthia's form complete.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So would some tuberose delight,<br>That struck the pilgrim's wondering sight<br>'Mid lonely deserts drear;<br>All as at eve, the sovereign flower<br>Dispenses round its balmy power,<br>And crowns the fragrant year.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah! now no more, the shepherd cried,<br>Must I Ambition's charms deride,<br>Her subtle force disown;<br>No more of Fauns or Fairies dream,<br>While Fancy, near each crystal stream,<br>Shall paint these forms alone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By low-brow'd rock or pathless mead,<br>I deem'd that splendour ne'er should lead<br>My dazzled eyes astray;<br>But who, alas! will dare contend,<br>If beauty add, or merit blend,<br>Its more illustrious ray?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor is it long, O plaintive swain!<br>Since Guernsey saw, without disdain,<br>Where, hid in woodlands green,<br>The partner of his early days,<br>And once the rival of his praise,<br>Had stolen through life unseen.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Scarce faded is the vernal flower,<br>Since Stamford left his honour'd bower<br>To smile familiar here:<br>O form'd by Nature to disclose,<br>How fair that courtesy which flows<br>From social warmth sincere!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor yet have many moons decay'd,<br>Since Pollio sought this lonely shade,<br>Admired this rural maze:<br>The noblest breast that Virtue fires,<br>The Graces love, the Muse inspires,<br>Might pant for Pollio's praise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Say, Thomson here was known to rest;<br>For him you vernal seat I drest,<br>Ah, never to return!<br>In place of wit and melting strains,<br>And social mirth, it now remains<br>To weep beside his urn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Come then, my Lelius! come once more,<br>And fringe the melancholy shore<br>With roses and with bays,<br>While I each wayward Fate accuse,<br>That envied his impartial Muse,<br>To sing your early praise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">While Philo, to whose favour'd sight<br>Antiquity, with full delight,<br>Her inmost wealth displays;<br>Beneath yon ruin's moulder'd wall<br>Shall muse, and with his friends recall<br>The pomp of ancient days.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here, too, shall Conway's name appear;<br>He praised the stream so lovely clear,<br>That shone the reeds among;<br>Yet clearness could it not disclose,<br>To match the rhetoric that flows<br>From Conway's polish'd tongue.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Even Pitt, whose fervent periods roll<br>Resistless through the kindling soul<br>Of senates, councils, kings-<br>Though form'd for courts, vouchsafed to rove,<br>Inglorious, through the shepherd's grove,<br>And ope his bashful springs.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But what can courts discover more<br>Than these rude haunts have seen before,<br>Each fount and shady tree?<br>Have not these trees and fountains seen<br>The pride of courts, the winning mien<br>Of peerless Aylesbury?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Grenville, she whose radiant eyes<br>Have mark'd by slow gradation rise<br>The princely piles of Stowe;<br>Yet praised these unembellish'd woods,<br>And smiled to see the babbling floods<br>Through self-worn mazes flow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Say, Dartmouth, who your banks admired,<br>Again beneath your caves retired,<br>Shall grace the pensive shade;<br>With all the bloom, with all the truth,<br>With all the sprightliness of youth,<br>By cool reflection sway'd?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Brave, yet humane, shall Smith appear;<br>Ye sailors! though his name be dear,<br>Think him not yours alone:<br>Grant him in other spheres to charm;<br>The shepherds' breasts though mild are warm,<br>And ours are all his own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O Lyttleton! my honour'd guest,<br>Could I describe thy generous breast,<br>Thy firm yet polish'd mind;<br>How public love adorns thy name,<br>How Fortune, too, conspires with Fame;<br>The song should please mankind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Shenstone">William Shenstone</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539243" data-title="A Pastoral Ode. To the Hon. Sir Richard Lyttleton de William Shenstone" data-description="The morn dispensed a dubious light,
A sudden mist had stolen from sight
Each pleasing vale and hill;
When Damon left his humble bowers,
To guard his flocks, to fence his flowers,
Or check his wandering rill.

Though school'd from Fortune's paths t..."></div>
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