A FRAGMENT. David Mallet 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. T116245 1122 K093079.001 Pearch, G. A collection of poems in four volumes. By several hands. Vol. I. [The second edition]. London printed for G. Pearch 1770 pp. 97-100. 4v. ; 8⁰.

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A FRAGMENT . BY MR. MALLET .

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FAIR morn ascends : soft zephyr's wing O'er hill and vale renews the spring : Where , sown profusely , herb and flower , Of balmy smell , of healing power , Their souls in fragrant dews exhale , And breathe fresh life in every gale . Here , spreads a green expanse of plains , Where sweetly-pensive Silence reigns ; And there at utmost stretch of eye , A mountain fades into the sky ; While winding round , diffus'd and deep , A river rolls with sounding sweep , Of human art no traces near , I seem alone with Nature here ! Here are thy walks , O sacred Health ! The monarch's bliss , the beggar's wealth ! The seasoning of all good below ! The sovereign friend in joy or woe ! O Thou , most courted , most despis'd , And but in absence duly priz'd ! Power of the soft and rosy face ! The vivid pulse , the vermil grace , The spirits when they gayest shine , Youth , beauty , pleasure , all are thine ! O sun of life ! whose heavenly ray Lights up and chears our various day , The turbulence of hopes and fears , The storm of fate , the cloud of years , Till Nature with thy parting light Reposes late in Death's calm night : Fled from the trophy'd roofs of state , Abodes of splendid pain , and hate ; Fled from the couch , where in sweet sleep Hot Riot would his anguish steep , But tosses thro' the midnight shade , Of death , of life , alike afraid ; For ever fled to shady cell , Where Temperance , where the Muses dwell , Thou oft art seen , at early dawn Slow-pacing o'er the breezy lawn : Or on the brow of mountain high , In silence feasting ear and eye , With song and prospect , which abound From birds , and woods , and waters round . But when the sun , with noon-tide ray , Flames forth intolerable day ; While Heat sits fervent on the plain , With Thirst and Languor in his train , All nature sickening in the blaze : Thou , in the wild and woody maze , That clouds the vale with umbrage deep , Impendent from the neighbouring steep , Wilt find betimes a calm retreat , Where breathing Coolness has her seat . There , plung'd amid the shadows brown , Imagination lays him down ; Attentive in his airy mood , To every murmur of the wood : The bee in yonder flowery nook ; The chidings of the headlong brook ; The green leaf shivering in the gale ; The warbling hill , the lowing vale ; The distant woodman's echoing stroke ; The thunder of the falling oak . From thought to thought in vision led , He holds high converse with the dead ; Sages , or Poets . See they rise ! And shadowy skim before his eyes . Hark ! Orpheus strikes the lyre again , That soften'd savages to men : Lo ! Socrates , the Sent of heaven , To whom it's moral will was given . Fathers and friends of humankind , They form'd the nations , or refin'd , With all that mends the head and heart , Enlightening truth , adorning art . While thus I mus'd beneath the shade , At once the sounding breeze was laid : And Nature , by the unknown law Shook deep with reverential awe : Dumb silence grew upon the hour ; A browner night involv'd the bower : When issuing from the inmost wood , Appear'd fair Freedom's Genius good . O Freedom ! sovereign boon of heaven ; Great Charter with our being given ; For which the patriot and the sage Have plann'd , have bled thro' every age ! High privilege of human race , Beyond a mortal monarch's grace : Who could not give , nor can reclaim , What but from God immediate came !

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