William Collins Poems

As once, if not with light regard,
I read aright that gifted bard,
(Him whose school above the rest
His loveliest Elfin Queen has blest,)
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1.

W H I L E, lost to all his former Mirth,
Britannia's Genius bends to Earth,
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Thou, to whom the world unknown
With all its shadowy shapes, is shown;
Who seest, appalled, the unreal scene,
While fancy lifts the veil between:
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S T R O P H E.

WHO shall wake the Spartan Fife,
And call in solemn Sounds to Life,
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S T R O P H E.

O THOU, who sit'st a smiling Bride
By Valour's arm'd and awful Side,
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SCENE, a Mountain in Circassia TIME, Midnight

In fair Circassia, where, to love inclined,
Each swain was blest, for every maid was kind!
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Thou who such weary Length hast past,
Where wilt thou rest, mad Nymph, at last?
Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted Cell,
Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell?
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O Thou, who bad'st thy Turtles bear
Swift from his Grasp thy golden Hair.
and sought'st thy native Skies:
When War, by Vultures drawn from far,
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In earliest Grece to Thee with partial Choice,
The Grief-full Muse addrest her infant Tongue;
The Maids and Matrons, on her awful Voice,
Silent and pale in wild Amazement hung.
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SCENE, a forest TIME, the Evening

In Georgia's land, where Tefflis' towers are seen,
In distant view along the level green,
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