Blend thought with exercise, with knowledge health!
Long, in this shelter'd scene of letter'd talk,
With sober step repeat the pensive walk;
Nor scorn, when graver triflings fail to please,
The cheap amusements of a mind at ease;
Here every care in sweet oblivion cast,
And many an idle hour--not idly pass'd.
No tuneful echoes, ambush'd at my gate,
Catch the blest accents of the wise and great. [l]
Vain of its various page, no Album breathes
The sigh that Friendship or the Muse bequeaths.
Yet some good Genii o'er my hearth preside,
Oft the far friend, with secret spell, to guide;
And there I trace, when the grey evening lours,
A silent chronicle of happier hours!
When Christmas revels in a world of snow,
And bids her berries blush, her carols flow;
His spangling shower when Frost the wizard flings;
Or, borne in ether blue, on viewless wings,
O'er the white pane his silvery foliage weaves,
And gems with icicles the sheltering eaves;
--Thy muffled friend his nectarine-wall pursues,
What time the sun the yellow crocus wooes,
Screen'd from the arrowy North; and duly hies [Foonote 4]
To meet the morning-rumour as it flies;
To range the murmuring market-place, and view
The motley groups that faithful TENIERS drew.
When Spring bursts forth in blossoms thro' the vale,
And her wild music triumphs on the gale,
Oft with my book I muse from stile to stile; [Footnote 5]