light,
With all the landscape blest their sight.
Through foliage thick the moonshine fell,
Checker'd upon the grassy dell;
Beyond, it show'd the distant spires
Of skyish hills, the world's grey sires;
More brightly beam'd, where far away,
Around his clustering islands, lay,
Adown some opening vale descried,
The vast Aegean's waveless tide.
What wonder then, if Reason's power
Fail'd in each reeling mind that hour,
When their enraptured spirits woke
To Nature's liberty, and broke
The artificial chain that bound them,
With the broad sky above, and the free winds around them!
From Nature's overflowing soul,
That sweet delirium on them stole;
She held the cup, and bade them share
In draughts of joy too deep to bear.

Not such the scenes that to the eyes
Of water-Bacchanals arise;
Whene'er the day of festival
Summons the Pledged t' attend its call--
In long procession to appear,
And show the world how good they are.
Not theirs the wild-wood wanderings,
The voices of the winds and springs:
But seek them where the smoke-fog brown
Incumbent broods o'er London town;
'Mid Finsbury Square ruralities
Of mangy grass, and scrofulous trees;
'Mid all the sounds that consecrate
Thy street, melodious Bishopsgate!
Not by the mountain grot and pine,
Haunts of the Heliconian Nine:
But where the town-bred Muses squall
Love-verses in an annual;
Such muses as inspire the grunt
Of Barry Cornwall, and Leigh Hunt.
Their hands no ivy'd thyrsus bear,
No Evoee floats upon the air:
But flags of painted calico
Flutter aloft with gaudy show;
And round then rises, long and loud,
The laughter of the gibing crowd.

O sacred Temp'rance! mine were shame
If I could wish to brand thy name.
But though these dullards boast thy grace,
Thou in their orgies hast no place.
Thou still disdain'st such sorry lot,
As even below the soaking sot.
Great was high Duty's power of old
The empire o'er man's heart to hold;
To urge the soul, or check its course,
Obedient to her guiding force.
These own not her control, but draw
New sanction for the moral law,
And by a stringent compact bind
The independence of the mind--
As morals had gregarious grown,
And Virtue could not stand alone.
What need they rules against abusing?
They find th' offence all in the using.
Denounce the gifts which bounteous Heaven
To cheer the heart