Or to the forest-fringed vale
Where widow'd turtles love to wail,
Where cowslips clad in mantle meek,
Nod their tall heads to breezes weak:
In the midst, with sedges grey
Crown'd, a scant rivulet winds its way,
And trembling thro' the weedy wreaths,
Around an oozy freshness breathes.
O'er the solitary green,
Nor cott, nor loitering hind is seen:
Nor aught alarms the mute repose,
Save that by fits an heifer lows:
A scene might tempt some peaceful sage
To rear him a lone hermitage;
Fit place his pensive eld might chuse
On Virtue's holy lore to muse.