To A Young Lady: On Her Return To The Country Poem by Samuel Bowden

After a long Pilgrimage at BATH

Are you return'd at last-apostate maid!
To calm retirement, and the rural shade?
Welcome, sweet Sylvia, to your silent seat,
Your sylvan solitude, and green retreat;
Welcome to quiet days, untroubled nights,
To guiltless joys, and innocent delights;
Welcome, fair fugitive, to peaceful Holt,
Almost a desart grown since your revolt.
When you withdrew, politer guests retir'd;
The place grew dull, the fountains uninspir'd:
Your wit, your company, and verse prevail'd,
And oft' recover'd when the fountains fail'd.


'Twas such a charm, as antient poets told,
Inspir'd the fam'd Castalian springs of old:
No healing power those sacred streams possest,
But some poetic God the region blest.
So if seraphic Sylvia deigns to sing,
Each list'ning stream is a Castalian spring;
Each grove divine, and every hill around,
Blooms with Parnassian laurels at the sound.


Long the forsaken fields your absence mourn'd,
And meadows wept, in dews, 'till you return'd:
But now, again, the feather'd warblers sing,
And in the midst of winter make a spring.
The tuneful sisters, when you fled, withdrew;
For where you go, those Syrens will pursue:
While some in equipage, and showy pride,
In gilded vehicles triumphant glide;
Compar'd to yours, their shining pomp is vain,
For all the muses mingle in your train.
When poets travel, rural nymphs attend,
Sylphs dance around, and Goddesses descend.


What cou'd you do in Bath's tumultuous air?
Can you Impertinence and folly bear?
What cou'd you do amongst the vain and proud,
But live in solitude amidst the crowd:
When to the rooms you rov'd with pensive mien,
Still anxious Clio hover'd round unseen;
On the Parade oft' whisper'd in your ear,
Fly Sylvia, fly,-Contentment is not here:
Your genius calls you like some beckoning ghost;
Fly Sylvia, fly-from this enchanted coast.
Deluded Maid, what tempts your longer stay?
The Country calls-come Sylvia, come away.

January 8, 1750