Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home: At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; 5 Then let winged Fancy wander Through the thought still spread beyond her: Open wide the mind's cage-door, She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;2 To banish Even from her sky. 25 Sit thee there, and send abroad, With a mind self-overaw 'd, Fancy, high-commission'd:-send her! And thou shalt quaff it:-thou shalt hear 40 Distant harvest-carols clear; Rustle of the reaped corn;3 Sweet birds antheming the morn: 45 Or the rooks, with busy caw, 50 Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst; Shaded hyacinth, alway Sapphire queen of the mid-May; 55 Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose; Every thing is spoilt by use: Where's the cheek that doth not fade, 70 Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid Whose lip mature is ever new? Where's the eye, however blue, Doth not weary? Where's the face One would meet in every place? 75 Where's the voice, however soft, One would hear so very oft? At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. Let, then, winged Fancy find 80 Thee a mistress to thy mind: Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,1 Ere the God of Torment taught her How to frown and how to chide; With a waist and with a side 85 White as Hebe's, when her zone2 Slipt its golden clasp, and down Fell her kirtle to her feet, While she held the goblet sweet, And Jove grew languid.-Break the mesh 90 Of the Fancy's silken leash; Quickly break her prison-string Brows'd by none but Dian's fawns;1 Underneath large blue-bells tented, Where the daisies are rose-scented, 15 And the rose herself has got Perfume which on earth is not; Thus ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again; 25 And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you, Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber'd, never cloying. Here, your earth-born souls still speak 30 To mortals, of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights; Of their passions and their spites; Of their glory and their shame; What doth strengthen and what maim. 35 Thus ye teach us, every day, Wisdom, though fled far away. weed; side; They came again; as when the urn once more Is shifted round, the first seen shades return; And they were strange to me, as may betide With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore. How is it, shadows! that I knew ye not? How came ye muffled in so hush a mask? Was it a silent deep-disguised plot My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour; To steal away, and leave without a task The blissful cloud of summer-indolence Benumb'd my eyes; my pulse grew less and less; Pain had no sting, and pleasure's wreath no flower: O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense Unhaunted quite of all but-nothingness? A third time pass'd they by, and, passing, turn'd Each one the face a moment whiles to me; Then faded, and to follow them I burn'd And ach'd for wings because I knew the three; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of 25 The first was a fair maid, and Love her thought 45 As doth eternity. Cold pastoral!3 When old age shall this generation waste, |