Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/94

 All Nature fades extinct; and she alone Heard, felt, and seen, possesses every thought, Fills every sense, and pants in every vein. Books are but formal dulness, tedious friends; And sad amid the social band he fits, Lonely, and unattentive. From his tongue Th' unfinish'd period falls: while borne away On swelling thought, his wafted spirit flies To the vain bosom of his distant fair; And leaves the semblance of a lover, fix'd In melancholy site, with head declin'd, And love-dejected eyes. Sudden he starts, Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs To glimmering shades, and sympathetic glooms; Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling stream, Romantic, hangs; there thro' the pensive dusk Strays, in heart-thrilling meditation lost, Indulging all to love: or on the bank Thrown, amid drooping lilies, swells the breeze With sighs unceasing, and the brook with tears, Thus in soft anguish he consumes the day, Nor quits his deep retirement, till the moon Peeps thro' the chambers of the fleecy east, Enlightened by degrees, and in her train Leads on the gentle hours; then forth he walks, Beneath the trembling languish of her beam, With soften'd soul, and wooes the bird of eve To mingle woes with his: or, while the world And all the sons of Care lie hush'd in sleep, Associates with the midnight shadows drear; And, sighing to the lonely taper, pours His idly-tortur'd heart into the page, Meant for the moving messenger of love; Where rapture burns on rapture, every line With riling frenzy fir'd. But if on bed Delir