Deep in your most sequester'd bower

Let me at last recline,
Where Solitude, mild, modest Power,

Leans on her ivy'd shrine.

How shall I woo thee, matchless Fair!

Thy heavenly smile how win!
Thy smile that smooths the brow of Care

And stills the storm within.
O wilt thou to thy favourite grove

Thine ardent votary bring,
And bless his hours, and bid them move

Serene, on silent wing!

Oft let remembrance sooth his mind

With dreams of former days,
When in the lap of Peace reclin'd

He fram'd his infant lays;
When Fancy rov'd at large, nor Care

Nor cold Distrust alarm’d,
Nor Envy with malignant glare

His simple youth had harm'd.

'Twas then, O Solitude, to thee

His early vows were paid,
From heart sincere, and warm, and free,

Devoted to the shade.
Ah, why did Fate his steps decoy

In stormy paths to roam,

Remote from all congenial joy!

O take the wanderer home.

Thy shades, thy silence now be mine,

Thy charms my only theme; My haunt the hollow cliff, whose pine

Waves o'er the gloomy stream, Whence the scar'd owl on pinions grey

Breaks from the rustling boughs, And down the lone vale sails away

To more profound repose.

O while to thee the woodland pours

Its wildly warbling song,
And balmy from the bank of flowers

The zephyr breathes along ;
Let no rude sound invade from far,

No vagrant foot be nigh,
No
ray

from Grandeur's gilded car, Flash on the startled eye.

But if some pilgrim through the glade

Thy hallow'd bowers explore,
O guard from harm his hoary head,

And listen to his lore;
For he of joys divine shall tell

That wean from earthly woe,
And triumph o'er the mighty spell

That chains this heart below.

For me, no more the path invites

Ambition loves to tread ; No more I climb those toilsome heights

By guileful Hope misled; Leaps my fond Auttering heart no more

To Mirth's enlivening strain ; For present pleasure soon is o'er,

And all the past is vain.

ODE VIII.

THE

HERMIT's VISION.

BY THE REV. THOMAS PENROSE.

Mildly beam'd the queen of night,

Sailing thro' the grey serene :
Silver'd by her modest light,

But faintly shone the solitary scene,
With deep’ning shadows mixt, and glitt'ring breaks

between.

High on a cliffy steep, o'erspread
With many an oak, whose ancient head

Did in its neighbour's top itself inwreath,
And cast an umbered gloom and solemn awe beneath.

High on a cliffy steep a Hermit sat,

Weighing in his weaned mind
The various turns of mortal fate,

The various woes of human kind;
Meek Pity's pearl oft started in his eye,
And many a pray’r he pour’d, and heav'd a frequent

sigh.

Silent was all around,

Save when the swelling breeze

Convey'd the half-expiring sound
Of distant waterfalls, and gently-waving trees.

No tinkling folds, no curfew's parting knell

Struck the sequester'd Anchorei's ear ;

Remote from men he scoop'd his narrow cell, For much he had endur'd, no more he look'd to fear.

But still, the world's dark tempests past,

What tho' his skiff was drawn to shore,
And shelter'd in retirement fast,

Yet oft his voyage he'd ponder o'er;
Oft in reflection life's rough ocean view,
How mount the stormy waves, how hard to struggle

through!

Before his sage revolving eyes
Various phantoms seem'd to rise,
Now retreat, and now advance,
And

mazy twine the mystic dance,

Joy led the van, in rapture wild,

Thoughtless of the distant day;
Sweet Coniplacence, angel mild,

Hied from the frantic pageant far away;
For she was Wisdom's favour'd child,

In revelry untaught to stray.