Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light.
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear-
Enough of chilly droppings from her brow-
Enough of fear and shadowy despair

To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!

ODE

TO WILLIAM LYTTLETON, ESQ.,

TOWARD THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1748.

How blithely passed the summer's day!
How bright was every flower!
While friends arrived in circles gay
To visit Damon's bower!

But now with silent step I range
Along some lonely shore;

And Damon's bower (alas the change!)
Is gay with friends no more.

Away to crowds and cities borne,
In quest of joy they steer;
While I, alas, am left forlorn
To weep the parting year!

O pensive Autumn, how I grieve
Thy sorrowing face to see!

When languid suns are taking leave

Of every drooping tree.

Ah! let me not with heavy eye

This dying scene survey!

Haste, Winter, haste; usurp the sky;
Complete my bower's decay!

Ill can I bear the motley cast

Yon sickening leaves retain,

That speak at once of pleasure past,
And bode approaching pain.

Ah, home unblessed! I gaze around,
My distant scenes require,

THOMAS HOOD.

Where, all in murky vapors drown'd,
Are hamlet, hill, and spire.

Though Thomson, sweet, descriptive bard!
Inspiring Autumn sung;

Yet how should he the months regard,
That stopp'd his flowing tongue?

Ah, luckless months, of all the rest,
To whose hard share it fell!
For sure his was the gentlest breast
That ever sung so well.

And see, the swallows now disown
The roofs they loved before;
Each, like his tuneful genius, flown
To glad some happier shore.

The wood-nymph eyes with pale affright
The sportsman's frantic deed,

While hounds, and horns, and yells unite
To drown the Muse's reed.

Ye fields! with blighted herbage brown;
Ye skies! no longer blue;

Too much we feel from Fortune's frown,
To bear these frowns from you.

Where is the mead's unsullied green ?
The zephyr's balmy gale?

And where sweet Friendship's cordial mien
That brighten'd every vale?

What though the vine disclose her dyes,

And boast her purple store,

Not all the vineyard's rich supplies

Can soothe our sorrows more.

He! he is gone, whose moral strain
Could wit and mirth refine;
He! he is gone, whose social vein
Surpass'd the power of wine.

Fast by the streams he deign'd to praise,

In yon sequester'd grove,

To him a votive urn I raise,

To him and friendly love.