Whether in time, Deduction's broken chain
Meets, and salutes her sister link again;
Or haunted Fancy, by a circling flight,
Comes back with joy to its own seat at night;
Or whether dead Imagination's ghost
Oft hovers where alive it haunted most;
Or if Thought's rolling globe, her circle run,
Turns up old objects to the soul her sun;
Or loves the Muse to walk with conscious pride
O'er the glad scene whence first she rose a bride:
Be what it will; late near yon whispering stream,
Where her own Temple was her darling theme;
There first the visionary sound was heard,
When to poetic view the Muse appear'd.
Such seem'd her eyes, as when an evening ray
Gives glad farewell to a tempestuous day;
Weak is the beam to dry up Nature's tears,
Still every tree the pendent sorrow wears;
Such are the smiles where drops of crystal show
Approaching joy at strife with parting woe.
As when, to scare th'ungrateful or the proud,
Tempests long frown, and thunder threatens loud,
Till the blest sun, to give kind dawn of grace,
Darts weeping beams across Heaven's watery face;
When soon the peaceful bow unstring'd is shown,
A sign God's dart is shot, and wrath o'erblown:
Such to unhallow'd sight the Muse divine
Might seem, when first she raised her eyes to mine.
What mortal change does in thy face appear,
Lost youth, she cried, since first I met thee here!