THE ORATOR OF THE WOODS

Each traveller asks, with fond surprize,

Why Thyrsis wastes the fleeting year

Where gloomy forests round him rise,

And only rustics come to hear —

His taste is odd ( they seem to say )

Such talents in so poor a way!

To those that courts and titles please

How dismal is his lot;

Beyond the hills, beneath some trees,

To live — and be forgot —

In dull retreats, where Nature binds

Her mass of clay to vulgar minds.

While you lament his barren trade,

Tell me — in yonder vale

Why grows that flower beneath the shade,

So feeble and so pale!—

Why was she not in sun-shine placed

To blush and please your men of taste?

In lonely wilds, those flowers so fair

No curious step allure;

And chance, not choice, has placed them there,

( Still charming, tho’ obscure )

Where, heedless of such sweets so nigh,

The lazy hind goes loitering by.