ODE TO EVENING
by: William Collins (1721-1759)
- F aught
of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
- May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
- Like thy own solemn springs,
- Thy springs and dying gales;
-
- O nymph reserved, while now the bright-hair'd sun
- Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
- With brede ethereal wove,
- O'erhang his wavy bed:
-
- Now air is hush'd save where the weak-eyed bat
- With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
- Or where the beetle winds
- His small but sullen horn,
-
- As oft he rises, 'midst the twilight path
- Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
- Now teach me, maid composed,
- To breathe some soften'd strain,
-
- Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,
- May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
- As, musing slow, I hail
- Thy genial loved return!
-
- For when thy folding-star arising shows
- His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
- The fragrant hours, and elves
- Who slept in buds the day,
-
- And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
- And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,
- The pensive pleasures sweet,
- Prepare thy shadowy car:
-
- Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake
- Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow'd pile,
- Or upland fallows grey
- Reflects its last cool gleam.
-
- Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
- Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
- That from the mountain's side
- Views wilds and swelling floods,
-
- And hamlets brown, and dim-discovere'd spires,
- And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
- Thy dewy fingers draw
- The gradual dusky veil.
-
- While Spring shall pour his show'rs, as oft he wont,
- And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
- While Summer loves to sport
- Beneath thy lingering light;
-
- While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
- Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
- Affrights thy shrinking train,
- And rudely rends thy robes:
-
- So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
- Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipp'd Health
- Thy gentlest influence own,
- And hymn thy favourite name!
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POEMS BY WILLIAM COLLINS |
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