Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuer maddeningly has paid His scanty breath with all he strangled anguish? What gatherd he whom lay the ages bring, From thine old lips, the siren-song of change? What men or gods behold thee ceaselessly, Ever silent, and a troubles course thee thro? What dogs and mowers now heed thee nor see, What little town by thy wild mountain side? Speak, silent urn. Sweet petty pain of greatness. Thy shaped bust in slow snow-showers as now, Two thousand four hundred summers have done Thou, silent form dost tease us to tears. Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whose eyes Thy sacred ivy shall vouchsafe a friend. Who now will be thy lord, or whom will thou commanded, To steady thy laying and rock the slow cradle of thy fame? No mortal yet to shutter thy beautys name, No hand can eer frame thy matchless frame, For each moving age shall still thy fame proclaim, And treasure thy shape in moulds reserve the same.