Ye, who in alleys green and leafy bowers
Sport, the rude children of fantastic birth;
Where frolic nymphs, and shaggy tribes of mirth,
In clamorous revels waste the midnight hours—
Who, linked in flaunting bands of mountain-flowers,
Weave your wild mazes o'er the dewy earth,
Ere the fierce lord of lustre rushes forth
And o'er the world his beamy radiance pours!
Oft has your clanking cymbal's maddening strain,
Loud-ringing through the torch-illumined grove,
Lured my loved Phaon from the youthful train,
Through rugged dells, o'er craggy rocks to rove—
Then how can she his vagrant heart detain,
Whose lyre throbs only to the touch of love?