Wilt thou to the isles
Atlantic, to the rich Hesperian clime,
Fly in the train of Autumn, and look on,
And learn from him; while, as he roves around,
Where'er his fingers touch the fruitful grove,
The branches bloom with gold; where'er his foot
Imprints the soil, the ripening clusters swell,
Turning aside their foliage, and come forth 310
In purple lights, till every hillock glows
As with the blushes of an evening sky?
Or wilt thou that Thessalian landscape trace,
Where slow Peneus his clear glassy tide
Draws smooth along, between the winding cliffs
Of Ossa and the pathless woods unshorn
That wave o'er huge Olympus? Down the stream,
Look how the mountains with their double range
Embrace the vale of Tempe: from each side
Ascending steep to heaven, a rocky mound 320
Cover'd with ivy and the laurel boughs
That crown'd young Phoebus for the Python slain.
Fair Tempe! on whose primrose banks the morn
Awoke most fragrant, and the noon reposed
In pomp of lights and shadows most sublime:
Whose lawns, whose glades, ere human footsteps yet
Had traced an entrance, were the hallow'd haunt
Of sylvan powers immortal: where they sate
Oft in the golden age, the Nymphs and Fauns,
Beneath some arbour branching o'er the flood, 330
And leaning round hung on the instructive lips
Of hoary Pan, or o'er some open dale
Danced in light measures to his sevenfold pipe,
While Zephyr's wanton hand along their path
Flung showers of painted blossoms, fertile dews,
And one perpetual spring.
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