Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/28

 Where they behold a lonely well Where now no tuneful Muses dwell, But now and then a slavish hind Paddling the troubled pool they find. Some trace the pleasing paths of joy, Others the blissful scene destroy, In thorny tracks of sorrow stray, And pine for Clio far away. But stay Methinks her lays I hear, So smooth! so sweet! so deep! so clear! No, it is not her voice I find; 'Tis but the echo stays behind. Some meditate Ambition's brow, And the black gulf that gapes below; Some peep in courts, and there they see The sneaking tribe of Flattery: But, striking to the ear and eye, A nimble deer comes bounding by! When rushing from yon rustling spray It made them vanish all away. I rouse me up, and on I rove; 'Tis more than time to leave the grove. The sun declines, the evening breeze Begins to whisper thro' the trees; And as I leave the sylvan gloom, As to the glare of day I come, An old man's smoky nest I see Leaning on an aged tree, Whose willow walls, and furzy brow, A little garden sway below: Thro' spreading beds of blooming green, Matted with herbage sweet and clean, A vein of water limps along, And makes them ever green and young.