The Botanic Garden
Stay your rudeness steps! whose throbbing breasts infold
The legion-fiends of Glory, or of Gold!
Stay! whose false lips seductive simpers part,
While Cunning nestles in the harlot-heart!--
For you no Dryads dress the roseate bower,
For you no Nymphs their sparkling vases pour;
Unmark'd by you, light Graces swim the green,
And hovering Cupids aim their shafts, unseen.
"But Thou! whose mind the well-attemper'd ray
Of Taste and Virtue lights with purer day;
Whose finer fense each soft vibration owns
With sweet responsive sympathy of tones;
So the fair flower expands it's lucid form
To meet the sun, and shuts it to the storm;--
For thee my borders nurse the fragrant wreath,
My fountains murmur, and my zephyrs breathe;
Slow slides the painted snail, the gilded fly
Smooths his fine down, to charm thy curious eye;
On twinkling fins my pearly nations play,
Or win with finuous train thier tracklets way;
My plumy pairs in gay empvoidery dress'd
Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest,
To Love's sweet notes attune the lifstening dell,
And Echo founds her soft symphonious shell.
And, if with Thee some hapless Maid should stray,
Disasterous Love companion of her way,
Oh, lead her timid steps to yonder glade,
Whose arching cliffs depening alders shade;
There, as meek Evening wakes her temperate breeze,
And moon-beams glimmer through the trembling trees,
The rills, that gurgle round, shall sooth her ear,
The weeping rocks shall number tear for tear;
There as sad Philomel, alike forlorn,
Sings to the Night from her accustomed thorn;
While at sweet intervals each falling note
Sighs in the gale, and whispers round the grot;
The sister-woe shall calm her aching breast,
And softer steal her cares to rest.--
"Winds of the North! restrain you icy gales,
Nor chill the bosom of these happy vales!
Hence in dark heaps, ye gathering Clouds, revolve!
Disperse, ye Lightnings! and, ye Mists, dissolve!
Hither, emerging from yon orient skies,
Botanic Goddess! bend thy radiant eyes;
O'er these soft fences assume thy gentle reign,
Pomona, Ceres, Flora in thy train;
O'er the still dawn thy placid smile effuse,
And with thy sicler sandals print the dews;
In noon's bright blaze thy vermil vest unfold,
And wave thy emerald banner starr'd with gold."
Thus spoke the Genius, as He stept along,
And bade these lawns to Peace and Truth belong;
Down the steep slopes He led with modest skill
The willing pathway, and the truant ril,
Stretch'd o'er the marshy vale yon willowy mound,
Where shines the lake amid the tufted ground,
Raifed the young woodland, smooth's the wavy green,
And gave Beauty all the quiet fence.--
She comes!--the Goddess!--through the whispering air,
Bright as the morn, descends her blushing car;
Each circling wheel a wreath of flowers intwines,
and gemd with flowers the silken harness shines;
The golden bits with flowery studs are deck'd,
And knots of flowers the crimson reisn connect.--
And now on earth the silver axle rings,
And the shell sinks upon its slender springs;
Light from airy feat the Goddess bounds,
And steps celestial press the pansied grounds.
Fair Spring advancing calls her feather's quire,
And tunes to softer notes her laughing lyre;
Bids her gay hours on purple pinions move,
And arms her Zephyrs with the shafts of Love,
Pleased Gnomes, ascending from their earthy beds,
Play round her graceful foosteps, as she treads;
Gay Sylphs attendant beat the fragrant air
On winnowing wings, and waft her golden hair;
Blue Nymphs emerging leave their sparkling streams,
And Fiery Forms alight from orient beams;
Musk'd in the rose's lap fresh dews they shed,
Or breathe celestial lustres round her head.
First the fine forms her dulcet voice requires,
Which bathe or bask in elemental fires;
From each bright gem of Day's refulgent car,
From the pale sphere of every twinkling star,
From each nice pore of ocean, earth, air,
With eye of flame the sparkling hosts repait,
Mix their gay hues, in changeful circles play,
Like motes, that tenant the meridian ray.--
So the clear Lens colltcts with magic power
The countles glories of the midnight hour;
Stars after stars with quivering lustre fall,
And twinkling glide along the whiten'd wall.--
Pleased, as they pass, she counts the glittering bands,
And stills their murmur with her waving hands;
Each liftening tribe with fond expectance burns,
And now to these, and now to those, she turns.
I. "Nymphs of primeval Fire! your vestal train
Hung with gold-tresses o'er the vast inane,
Pierced with your silver shafts the throne of Night,
And charm'd young Nature's opening eyes with light;
When Love Divine, with brooding wings unfurl'd,
Call'd from the rude abyss the living world.
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