ODE TO LEVEN-WATER.
On Leven’s banks, while free to rove,
And tune the rural pipe to love,
I envied not the happiest swain
That ever trod the Arcadian plain.
Pure stream! in whose transparent wave
My youthful limbs I wont to lave;
No torrents stain thy limpid source;
No rocks impede thy dimpling course,
That sweetly warbles o’er its bed,
With white, round, polish’d pebbles spread;
While, lightly pois’d, the scaly brood,
In myriads cleave thy crystal flood;
The springing trout in speckled pride;
The salmon, monarch of the tide;
The ruthless pike, intent on war;
The silver eel, and mottled par,
Devolving from thy parent lake,
A charming maze thy waters make,
By bowers of birds, and groves of pine,
And hedges flower’d with eglantine.
Still on thy banks so gayly green,
May num’rous herds and flocks be seen,
And lasses chanting o’er the pail,
And shepherds piping in the dale,
And ancient Faith, that knows no guile,
And Industry embrown’d with toil,
And hearts resolved, and hands prepar’d,
The blessings they enjoy to guard.
Tobias Smollett, 1720–1771.