Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/576

 WILLIAM COLLINS

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall.

But com'st a decent maid,

In Attic robe array'd, O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I call!

By all the honey'd store

On Hybla's thymy shore, By all her blooms and mingled murmurs dear,

By her whose love-lorn woe,

In evening musings slow, Soothed sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear:

By old Cephisus deep,

Who spread his wavy sweep In warbled wand'rings round thy green retreat;

On whose enameird side,

When holy Freedom died, No equal haunt allured thy future feet*

O sister meek of Truth,

To my admiring youth Thy sober aid and native charms infuse^

The flow'rs that sweetest breathe,

Though beauty cull'd the wreath, Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues.

While Rome could none esteem,

But virtue's patriot theme, You loved her hills, and led her laureate band;

But stay'd to sing alone

To one distinguished throne, And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land.

No more, in hall or bow'r, The passions own thy pow'r.

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