Fancy

Ever let the Fancy roam,

  Pleasure never is at home:

  At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,

  Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;

  Then let winged Fancy wander

  Through the thought still spread beyond her:

  Open wide the mind's cage-door,

  She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.

  O sweet Fancy! let her loose;

  Summer's joys are spoilt by use,

  And the enjoying of the Spring

  Fades as does its blossoming;

  Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,

  Blushing through the mist and dew,

  Cloys with tasting: What do then?

  Sit thee by the ingle, when

  The sear faggot blazes bright,

  Spirit of a winter's night;

  When the soundless earth is muffled,

  And the caked snow is shuffled

  From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;

  When the Night doth meet the Noon

  In a dark conspiracy

  To banish Even from her sky.

  Sit thee there, and send abroad,

  With a mind self-overaw'd,

  Fancy, high-commission'd:—send her!

  She has vassals to attend her:

  She will bring, in spite of frost,

  Beauties that the earth hath lost;

  She will bring thee, all together,

  All delights of summer weather;

  All the buds and bells of May,

  From dewy sward or thorny spray;

  All the heaped Autumn's wealth,

  With a still, mysterious stealth:

  She will mix these pleasures up

  Like three fit wines in a cup,

  And thou shalt quaff it:—thou shalt hear

  Distant harvest-carols clear;

  Rustle of the reaped corn;

  Sweet birds antheming the morn:

  And, in the same moment, hark!

  'Tis the early April lark,

  Or the rooks, with busy caw,

  Foraging for sticks and straw.

  Thou shalt, at one glance, behold

  The daisy and the marigold;

  White-plum'd lillies, and the first

  Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;

  Shaded hyacinth, alway

  Sapphire queen of the mid-May;

  And every leaf, and every flower

  Pearled with the self-same shower.

  Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep

  Meagre from its celled sleep;

  And the snake all winter-thin

  Cast on sunny bank its skin;

  Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see

    Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,

  When the hen-bird's wing doth rest

  Quiet on her mossy nest;

  Then the hurry and alarm

  When the bee-hive casts its swarm;

  Acorns ripe down-pattering,

  While the autumn breezes sing.

      Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;

  Every thing is spoilt by use:

  Where's the cheek that doth not fade,

  Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid

  Whose lip mature is ever new?

  Where's the eye, however blue,

  Doth not weary? Where's the face

  One would meet in every place?

  Where's the voice, however soft,

  One would hear so very oft?

  At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth

  Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.

  Let, then, winged Fancy find

  Thee a mistress to thy mind:

  Dulcet-ey'd as Ceres' daughter,

  Ere the God of Torment taught her

  How to frown and how to chide;

  With a waist and with a side

  White as Hebe's, when her zone

  Slipt its golden clasp, and down

  Fell her kirtle to her feet,

  While she held the goblet sweet

  And Jove grew languid.—Break the mesh

  Of the Fancy's silken leash;

  Quickly break her prison-string

  And such joys as these she'll bring.—

  Let the winged Fancy roam,

  Pleasure never is at home.