The FAIR RECLUSE. BALLAD VIII. Christopher Smart Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T42626 K041581.000 Smart, Christopher, 1722-1771. Poems on several occasions: By Christopher Smart, A. M. Fellow of Pembroke-Hall, Cambridge. London printed for the author, by W. Strahan; and sold by J. Newbery, at the Bible and Sun, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, MDCCLII. 1752 pp. 206-207. [16],230p.,plates; 4⁰.

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The FAIR RECLUSE . BALLAD VIII . I. YE ancient patriarchs of the wood , That veil around these awful glooms , Who many a century have stood In verdant age , that ever blooms . II . Ye Gothic tow'rs , by vapours dense , Obscur'd into severer state , In pastoral magnificence At once so simple and so great . III . Why all your jealous shades on me , Ye hoary elders do ye spread ? Fair Innocence shou'd still be free , Nought shou'd be chain'd , but what we dread . IV . Say , must these tears for ever flow ? Can I from patience learn content , While solitude still nurses woe , And leaves me leisure to lament . V. My guardian see ! — who wards off peace , Whose cruelty is his employ , Who bids the tongue of transport cease , And stops each avenue to joy ? VI . Freedom of air alone is giv'n , To aggravate , not sooth my grief , To view th' immensely-distant heav'n , My nearest prospect of relief .