Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age, From these, perhaps, (ere Nature bade her die) But thou, falfe guardian of a charge too good, And curs'd with harts unknowing how to yield.' What can atone, (Oh, ever-injur'd shade!) RR Ву By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name Poets themselves must fall like thofe they sung, 1 1 THE THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE. AN ALLEGORICAL POEM. IN TWO CANTOS. BY MR. JAMES THOMSON. The Castle hight of Indolence, CANTO I. O Mortal man! who livelt here by toil, Do not complain of this thy hard eftate; That like an emmet thou must ever moil, Is a sad fentence of an ancient date : And certes there is for it reason great ; For tho' sometimes it makes thee weep and wail, And curse thy ftar, and early drudge and late, Withouten that would come an heavyer bale, Loose life, unruly paffions, and diseases pale. In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round, A most enchanting wizard did abide, Than whom a fiend more fell is no where found. And there a season atween June and May, A listless climate made; where, sooth to say, Was nought around but images of reft, Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between, And flow'ry beds that slumbrous influence keft : From poppies breath’d, and beds of pleasant green, Rr2 Where Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Mean-time unnumber'd glitt'ring streamlets play'd, That as they bicker'd thro' the funny glade, Joind to the prattle of the purling rills Were heard the lowing herds along the vale, And focks loud-bleating from the distant hills, And vacant shepherds piping in the dale; And now and then sweet Philomel would wail, Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep, And still a coil the grashopper did keep: Fall in the passage of the vale, above, A sable, filent, folemn forest stood, As Idless fancy'd in her dreaming mood; up the hills, on either fide, a wood Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro, Sent forth a sleepy horror thro' the blood: And where this valley winded out below, The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow. A pleasing land of drowzy-head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-lhut eye, And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever fushing round a summer-sky; There eke the soft Delights, that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness thro? the breast, And the calm Pleasures always hover'd nigh; But whate'er smack'd of noyance or unreft, Was far, far off expelld, from this delicious neft. The The landscape such, inspiring perfect ease, Where Indolencé (for so the wizard hight) Close-hid his Castle mid embowering trees, That half fhut out the beams of Phoebus bright, And made a kind of checquer'd day and night; Mean-while, unceasing, at the maffy gate, Was plac'd, and to his lute of cruel fate Thither continual pilgrims crouded still, The freshnefs of this valley (mote their eye, 'Till clustering round, th' enchanter false they hung, Ymolten with his Syren melody; While o'er th' enfeebling late his hand he flung, Behold! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold! • See all but man with unearn'd pleasure gay; • See her bright robes the butterfly unfold, • Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May! • What youthful bride can equal her array? • Who can with her for easy pleasure vie? • From mead to mead, with gentle wing to stray, From flow'r to flow'r, on balmy gales, to fly, • Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky. : Behold the merry, minstrels of the morn, • The swarming fongsters of the careless grove, 1 Ten thousand throats that from the flowering thorn Hymn their good God, and carol-fweet of love, • Such |