nquil view'd the limpid stream below,
Brown with o'er hanging shade, in circling eddies flow.
Dear peaceful scenes, that now prevail no more,
Your loss shall every weeping muse deplore!
Your poet, too, in one dear favour'd spot,
Shall shew your beauties are not quite forgot:
Protect from all the sacrilegious waste
Of false improvement, and pretended taste,
_One tranquil vale!_[100] where oft, from care retir'd
He courts the muse, and thinks himself inspired;
Lulls busy thought, and rising hope to rest,
And checks each wish that dares his peace molest.

After scorning "wisdom's solemn empty toys," he proceeds:

Let me, retir'd from business, toil, and strife,
Close amidst books and solitude my life;
Beneath yon high-brow'd rocks in thickets rove,
Or, meditating, wander through the grove;
Or, from the cavern, view the noontide beam
Dance on the rippling of the lucid stream,
While the wild woodbine dangles o'er my head,
And various flowers around their fragrance spread.

* * * * *

Then homeward as I sauntering move along,
The nightingale begins his evening song;
Chanting a requiem to departed light,
That smooths the raven down of sable night.

After an animated tribute to _Homer_, he reviews the rising and the
slumbering, or drooping of the arts, midst storms of war, and gloomy
bigotry.

Hail, arts divine!--still may your solace sweet
Cheer the recesses of my calm retreat;
And banish every mean pursuit, that dares
Cloud life's serene with low ambitious cares.
Vain is the pomp of wealth: its splendid halls,
And vaulted roofs, sustain'd by marble walls.--
In beds of state pale sorrow often sighs,
Nor gets relief from gilded canopies:
But arts can still new recreation find,
To soothe the troubles of th' afflicted mind;
Recall the ideal work of ancient days,
And man in his own estimation raise;
Visions of glory to his eyes impart,
And cheer with conscious pride his drooping heart.

After a review of our several timber trees, and a tribute to our native
streams, and woods; and after describing in happy lines _Kamtschatka's_
dreary coast, he concludes his poem with reflections on the ill-fated
_Queen of France_, whose

Waning beauty, in the dungeon's gloom,
Feels, yet alive, the horrors of the tomb!

Mr. Knight's portrait, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, i