Anna Seward (1747–1809)

THE EVENING shines in May’s luxuriant pride,

And all the sunny hills at distance glow,

And all the brooks, that through the valley flow,

Seem liquid gold. O, had my fate denied

Leisure, and power to taste the sweets that glide

Through wakened minds, as the blest seasons go

On their still varying progress, for the woe

My heart has felt what balm had been supplied?

But where great Nature smiles, as here she smiles,

’Mid verdant vales, and gently swelling hills,

And glassy lakes, and mazy murmuring rills,

And narrow wood-wild lanes, her spell beguiles

Th’ impatient sighs of grief, and reconciles

Poetic minds to life, with all her ills.