Nature I’ll court in her sequester’d haunts,
    By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell,
  Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts,
    And Health, and Peace, and Contemplation dwell. 
  There Study shall with Solitude recline,
    And Friendship pledge me to his fellow swains, 110
  And Toil and Temperance sedately twine
    The slender cord that fluttering life sustains;
  And fearless Poverty shall guard the door,
    And Taste unspoil’d the frugal table spread,
  And Industry supply the humble store,
    And Sleep unbribed his dews refreshing shed;
  White-mantled Innocence, ethereal sprite! 
  Shall chase far off the goblins of the night,
  And Independence o’er the day preside,
  Propitious power! my patron and my pride! 120

[Footnote 1:  ‘Baptised with blood:’  Charlemagne obliged four thousand Saxon prisoners to embrace the Christian religion, and immediately after they were baptized, ordered their throats to be cut.  Their prince, Vitikind, fled for shelter to Gotrick, king of Denmark.]

[Footnote 2:  ‘Adriatic wave:’  although Venice was built a considerable time before the era here assigned for the birth of Independence, the republic had not yet attained to any great degree of power and splendour.]

[Footnote 3:  ‘Neptune’s wide domain:’  the Low Countries, and their revolt from Spain, are here alluded to.]

[Footnote 4:  ‘Uri’s rocks:’  alluding to the known story of William Tell and his associates.]

[Footnote 5:  ‘Calvi’s rocky shore:’  the noble stand made by Paschal Paoli, and his associates, against the usurpations of the French king.]

* * * * *

SONG.

  1 While with fond rapture and amaze,
    On thy transcendent charms I gaze,
    My cautious soul essays in vain
    Her peace and freedom to maintain: 
    Yet let that blooming form divine,
    Where grace and harmony combine,
    Those eyes, like genial orbs that move,
    Dispensing gladness, joy, and love,
    In all their pomp assail my view,
    Intent my bosom to subdue,
    My breast, by wary maxims steel’d,
    Not all those charms shall force to yield.

  2 But when, invoked to Beauty’s aid,
    I see the enlighten’d soul display’d;
    That soul so sensibly sedate
    Amid the storms of froward fate,
    Thy genius active, strong, and clear,
    Thy wit sublime, though not severe,
    The social ardour, void of art,
    That glows within thy candid heart;
    My spirits, sense, and strength decay,
    My resolution dies away,
    And, every faculty oppress’d,
    Almighty Love invades my breast!

* * * * *

  SONG.

  1 To fix her!—­’twere a task as vain
    To count the April drops of rain,
    To sow in Afric’s barren soil,
    Or tempests hold within a toil.