Smooths her mellifluent stream. Thee, Beauty, thee275
The regal dome, and thy enlivening ray
The mossy roofs adore: thou, better sun!
For ever beamest on th' inchanted heart
Love, and harmonious wonder, and delight Poetic.
Brightest progeny of heav'n!280
How shall I trace thy features? where select
The roseate hues to emulate thy bloom?
Haste then, my song, thro' nature's wide expanse,
Haste then, and gather all her comeliest wealth,
Whate'er bright spoils the florid earth contains,285
Whate'er the waters, or the liquid air,
To deck thy lovely labour. Wilt thou fly
With laughing Autumn to th' Atlantic isles[O 1],
And range with him th' Hesperian field, and see,
Where'er his fingers touch the fruitful grove,290
The branches shoot with gold; where'er his step
Marks the glad soil, the tender clusters glow
With purple ripeness, and invest each hill
As with the blushes of an evening sky.
Or wilt thou rather stoop thy vagrant plume,295
- ↑ Atlantic isles.] By these islands, which were also called the Fortunate, the ancients are now generally supposed to have meant the Canaries. They were celebrated by the poets for the mildness and fertility of the climate; for the gardens of the daughters of Hesperus, the brother of Atlas; and the dragon which constantly watched their golden fruit, till it was slain by the Tyrian Hercules.
