Now through the stately portals issuing forth,
The Muse to softer glories turns and seeks
The woodland shade, delighted. Not the vale
Of Tempé fam'd in song, or Ida's grove
Such beauty boasts. Amid the mazy gloom
Of this romantick wilderness once stood
The bow'r of Rosamonda, hapless fair,
Sacred to grief and love: the crystal fount
In which she us'd to bathe her beauteous limbs
Still warbling flows, pleas'd to reflect the face
Of SPENCER, lovely maid, when tir'd she fits
Beside its flow'ry brink, and views those charms
Which only Rosamond could once excel.
But see where flowing with a nobler stream,
A limpid lake of purest waters rolls
Beneath the wide-stretch'd arch, stupendous work,
Through which the Danube might collected pour
His spacious urn! Silent awhile and smooth
The current glides, till with an headlong force
Broke and disorder'd, down the steep it falls
In loud cascades; the silver-sparkling foam
Glitters relucent in the dancing ray.