William Collins

To fair Fidele’s grassy tomb / Soft maids and village hinds shall bring / Each op’ning sweet, of earliest bloom,

Home, thou return’st from Thames, whose naiads long / Have seen thee ling’ring with a fond delay / ’Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day,

To fair Fidele’s grassy tomb / Soft maids and village hinds shall bring / Each opening sweet of earliest bloom,

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest / By all their country’s wishes blest! / When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,

In the downhill of life, when I find I’m declining, / May my lot no less fortunate be / Than a snug elbow-chair can afford for reclining,

As once, if not with light regard, / I read aright that gifted bard, / (Him whose school above the rest

If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song / May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, / Like thy own solemn springs,

(STROPHE) / Who shall awake the Spartan fife, / And call in solemn sounds to life

O thou, by Nature taught / To breathe her genuine thought / In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong;

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, / By all their country's wishes blest! / When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,