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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539274" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Elegy XXI. Taking a View of the Country From His Retirement</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus Damon sung-What though unknown to praise,<br>Umbrageous coverts hide my Muse and me,<br>Or mid the rural shepherds flow my days?<br>Amid the rural shepherds, I am free.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To view sleek vassals crowd a stately hall,<br>Say, should I grow myself a solemn slave?<br>To find thy tints, O Titian! grace my wall,<br>Forego the flowery fields my fortune gave?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Lord of my time, my devious path I bend<br>Through fringy woodland, or smooth-shaven lawn,<br>Or pensile grove, or airy cliff ascend,<br>And hail the scene by Nature's pencil drawn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thanks be to Fate-though nor the racy vine,<br>Nor fattening olive, clothe the fields I rove,<br>Sequester'd shades and gurgling founts are mine,<br>And every sylvan grot the Muses love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here if my vista point the mouldering pile,<br>Where hood and cowl Devotion's aspect wore,<br>I trace the tottering relics with a smile,<br>To think the mental bondage is no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Pleased if the glowing landscape wave with corn,<br>Or the tall oaks, my country's bulwark, rise;<br>Pleased if mine eye, o'er thousand valleys borne,<br>Discern the Cambrian hills support the skies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And see Plinlimmon! even the youthful sight<br>Scales the proud hill's ethereal cliffs with pain!<br>Such, Caer-Caradoc! thy stupendous height,<br>Whose ample shade obscures th' Iernian main.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Bleak, joyless regions! where, by Science fired,<br>Some prying sage his lonely step may bend;<br>There, by the love of novel plants inspired,<br>Invidious view the clambering goats ascend.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet for those mountains, clad with lasting snow,<br>The freeborn Briton left his greenest mead,<br>Receding sullen from his mightier foe,<br>For here he saw fair Liberty recede.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then if a chief perform'd a patriot's part,<br>Sustain'd her drooping sons, repell'd her foes,<br>Above all Persian luxe or Attic art<br>The rude majestic monument arose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Progressive ages caroll'd forth his fame,<br>Sires, to his praise, attuned their children's tongue;<br>The hoary Druid fed the generous flame,<br>While in such strains the reverend wizard sung:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Go forth, my Sons!-for what is vital breath,<br>Your gods expell'd, your liberty resign'd?<br>Go forth, my Sons!-for what is instant death<br>To souls secure perennial joys to find?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'For scenes there are, unknown to war or pain,<br>Where drops the balm that heals a tyrant's wound;<br>Where patriots, bless'd with boundless freedom, reign,<br>With misletoe's mysterious garlands crown'd.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Such are the names that grace your mystic songs;<br>Your solemn woods resound their martial fire;<br>To you, my Sons, the ritual meed belongs,<br>If in the cause you vanquish or expire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Hark! from the sacred oak, that crowns the groves,<br>What awful voice my raptured bosom warms!<br>This is the favour'd moment Heaven approves,<br>Sound the shrill trump; this instant sound, to arms.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Theirs was the science of a martial race,<br>To shape the lance, or decorate the shield<br>Even the fair virgin stain'd her native grace<br>To give new horrors to the tented field.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now, for some cheek where guilty blushes glow,<br>For some false Florimel's impure disguise,<br>The listed youth nor War's loud signal know,<br>Nor Virtue's call, nor Fame's imperial prize.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then, if soft concord lull'd their fears to sleep,<br>Inert and silent slept the manly car,<br>But rush'd horrific o'er the fearful steep,<br>If Freedom's awful clarion breathed to war.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now the sleek courtier, indolent and vain,<br>Throned in the splendid carriage, glides supine,<br>To taint his virtue with a foreign stain,<br>Or at a favourite board his faith resign.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Leave then, O Luxury! this happy soil;<br>Chase her, Britannia! to some hostile shore<br>Or fleece the baneful pest with annual spoil,<br>And let thy virtuous offspring weep no more.</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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Umbrageous coverts hide my Muse and me,
Or mid the rural shepherds flow my days?
Amid the rural shepherds, I am free.

To view sleek vassals crowd a stately hall,
Say, should I grow myself a solemn sl..."></div>
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