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On green, untrodden banks they view
The hyacinth's neglected hue:
In their lone haunts and woodland rounds
They spy the squirrel's airy bounds;
And startle from her ashen spray,
Across the glen, the screaming jay.
Each native charm their steps explore
Of solitude's sequester'd store.
   For them the moon, with cloudless ray,
Mounts to illume their homeward way:
Their weary spirits to relieve,
The meadow's incense breathe at eve.
No riot mars the simple fare
That o'er a glimm'ring hearth they share:
But when the curfeu's measur'd roar
Duly, the dark'ning vallies o'er,
Has echo'd from the distant town,
They wish no beds of cygnet-down:
No trophy'd canopies, to close
Their drooping eyes in quick repose.
   Their little sons, who spread the bloom
Of health around the clay-built room,
Or through the primros'd coppice stray,
Or gamble in the new-mown hay:
Or quaintly braid the cowslip-twine,
Or drive afield the tardy kine;
Or hasten from the sultry hill
To loiter at the shady rill:
Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest,
To rob the raven's ancient nest.
   Their humble porch with honied flow'rs
The curling woodbine's shade embow'rs:
From the trim garden's thymy mound
Their bees in busy swarms resound:
Nor fell Disease, before his time,
Hastes to consume life's golden prime:
But when their temples long have wore
The silver crown of tresses hoar;
As studious still calm peace to keep,
Beneath a flow'ry turf they sleep.

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