Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/555

    Thou, who with hermit heart
    Disdain'st the wealth of art,
And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall:
    But com'st a decent maid,
    In Attic robe array'd,
O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I call!

    By all the honey'd store
    On Hybla's thymy shore,
By all her blooms and mingled murmurs dear,
    By her whose love-lorn woe,
    In evening musings slow,
Soothed sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear:

    By old Cephisus deep,
    Who spread his wavy sweep
In warbled wand'rings round thy green retreat;
    On whose enamell'd side,
    When holy Freedom died,
No equal haunt allured thy future feet!

    O sister meek of Truth,
    To my admiring youth
Thy sober aid and native charms infuse!
    The flow'rs that sweetest breathe,
    Though beauty cull'd the wreath,
Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues.

    While Rome could none esteem,
    But virtue's patriot theme,
You loved her hills, and led her laureate band;
    But stay'd to sing alone
    To one distinguish'd throne,
And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land.