Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/571

 THOMAS GRAY

On Cytherea's day

With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures,

Frisking light in frolic measures; Now pursuing, now retreating,

Now in circling troops they meet: To brisk notes in cadence beating,

Glance their many-twinkling feet. Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare

Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay. With arms sublime, that float upon the air,

In gliding state she wins her easy way: O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

Man's feeble race what ills await, Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, sad refuge from the storms of fate ' The fond complaint, my song, disprove, And justify the laws of Jove. Siv, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse? Night, and all her sickly dews, Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, He gives to range the dreary sky: Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring shafts of war

In climes beyond the solar road, Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, The Muse has broke the twilight gloom

To cheer the shiv'ring native's dull abode. And oft, beneath the od'rous shade Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

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