Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/149

 Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget, The gentle Author:Edmund Spenser, Fancy's pleasing son; Who, like a copious river, pour'd his song O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground: Nor thee, his antient master, laughing sage, Author:Geoffrey Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse, Well-moraliz'd, shines thro' the Gothic cloud Of time and language o'er thy genius thrown.

my song soften, as thy I,, hail! for beauty is their own, The feeling heart, simplicity of life, And elegance, and taste: the faultless form, Shap'd by the hand of harmony; the cheek, Where the live crimson, thro' the native white Soft-shooting, o'er the face diffuses bloom, And every nameless grace; the parted lip, Like the red rose-bud moist with morning-dew, Breathing delight; and, under flowing jet, Or sunny ringlets, or of circling brown, The neck slight-shaded, and the swelling breast; The look resistless, piercing to the soul, And by the soul inform'd, when drest in love She sits high-smiling in the conscious eye.

of bliss! amid the subject seas, That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up, At once the wonder, terror, and delight, Of distant nations; whose remotest shores Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm; Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults Baffling, as thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave.