| |
| ON Leven’s banks, while free to rove, | |
| And tune the rural pipe to love, | |
| I envied not the happiest swain | |
| That ever trod the Arcadian plain. | |
| Pure stream! in whose transparent wave | 5 |
| My youthful limbs I wont to lave; | |
| No torrents stain thy limpid source, | |
| No rocks impede thy dimpling course, | |
| That sweetly warbles o’er its bed, | |
| With white, round, polished pebbles spread; | 10 |
| While, lightly poised, the scaly brood | |
| In myriads cleave thy crystal flood; | |
| The springing trout in speckled pride, | |
| The salmon, monarch of the tide, | |
| The ruthless pike, intent on war, | 15 |
| The silver eel, and mottled par. | |
| Devolving from thy parent lake, | |
| A charming maze thy waters make, | |
| By bowers of birch, and groves of pine, | |
| And edges flowered with eglantine. | 20 |
| Still on thy banks so gayly green, | |
| May numerous herds and flocks be seen: | |
| And lasses chanting o’er the pail, | |
| And shepherds piping in the dale; | |
| And ancient faith that knows no guile, | 25 |
| And industry embrowned with toil; | |
| And hearts resolved, and hands prepared, | |
| The blessings they enjoy to guard! | |
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