Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
William Collins. 17211759459. Ode to Evening
IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, | |
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, | |
Like thy own solemn springs, | |
Thy springs and dying gales; | |
O nymph reserved, while now the bright-hair’d sun | 5 |
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, | |
With brede ethereal wove, | |
O’erhang his wavy bed: | |
Now air is hush’d, save where the weak-eyed bat | |
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, | 10 |
Or where the beetle winds | |
His small but sullen horn, | |
As oft he rises, ‘midst the twilight path | |
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum: | |
Now teach me, maid composed, | 15 |
To breathe some soften’d strain, | |
Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, | |
May not unseemly with its stillness suit, | |
As musing slow, I hail | |
Thy genial loved return! | 20 |
For when thy folding-star arising shows | |
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp | |
The fragrant hours, and elves | |
Who slept in buds the day, | |
And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, | 25 |
And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still, | |
The pensive pleasures sweet, | |
Prepare thy shadowy car: | |
Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake | |
Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow’d pile, | 30 |
Or upland fallows grey | |
Reflect its last cool gleam. | |
Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, | |
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut | |
That from the mountain’s side | 35 |
Views wilds and swelling floods, | |
And hamlets brown, and dim-discover’d spires, | |
And hears their simple bell, and marks o’er all | |
Thy dewy fingers draw | |
The gradual dusky veil. | 40 |
While Spring shall pour his show’rs, as oft he wont, | |
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve! | |
While Summer loves to sport | |
Beneath thy lingering light; | |
While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves, | 45 |
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, | |
Affrights thy shrinking train, | |
And rudely rends thy robes: | |
So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, | |
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipp’d Health | 50 |
Thy gentlest influence own, | |
And hymn thy favourite name! |