HYMN on SOLITUDE. James Thomson 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. T131163 K104099.003 Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. III. London printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley 1763 [1st ed. 1758] pp. 2-4. 6v.: music; 8⁰.

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HYMN on SOLITUDE . By the late JAMES THOMSON , Esq ; Author of the Seasons . HAIL , ever-pleasing Solitude ! Companion of the wise and good ! But , from whose holy , piercing eye , The herd of fools , and villains fly . Oh ! how I love with thee to walk ! And listen to thy whisper'd talk ; Which innocence , and truth imparts , And melts the most obdurate hearts . A thousand shapes you wear with ease , And still in every shape you please ; Now rapt in some mysterious dream , A lone philosopher you seem ; Now quick from hill to vale you fly , And now you sweep the vaulted sky , And nature triumphs in your eye : Then strait again you court the shade , And pining hang the pensive head . A shepherd next you haunt the plain , And warble forth your oaten strain . A lover now with all the grace Of that sweet passion in your face ! Then , soft-divided , you assume The gentle-looking H—d's bloom , As , with her PHILOMELA , she , ( Her PHILOMELA fond of thee ) Amid the long withdrawing vale , Awakes the rival'd nightingale . A thousand shapes you wear with ease , And still in every shape you please , Thine is th' unbounded breath of morn , Just as the dew-bent rose is born ; And while meridian fervors beat , Thine is the woodland's dumb retreat ; But chief , when evening scenes decay , And the faint landskip swims away , Thine is the doubtful dear decline . And that best hour of musing thine . Descending angels bless thy train , The virtues of the sage , and swain ; Plain Innocence in white array'd , And Contemplation rears the head : Religion with her aweful brow , And rapt URANIA waits on you . Oh , let me pierce thy secret cell ! And in thy deep recesses dwell : For ever with thy raptures fir'd , For ever from the world retir'd ; Nor by a mortal seen , save he A LYCIDAS , or LYCON be .