The text comes from Finch’s Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions (1713).
| In such a Night, when every louder Wind | ||
| Is to its distant Cavern safe confin’d; | ||
| And only gentle Zephyr fans his Wings, | ||
| And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings; | ||
| 5 | Or from some Tree, fam’d for the Owl’s delight, | |
| She, hollowing clear, directs the Wand’rer right: | ||
| In such a Night, when passing Clouds give place, | ||
| Or thinly vail the Heav’ns mysterious Face; | ||
| When in some River, overhung with Green, | ||
| 10 | The waving Moon and trembling Leaves are seen; | |
| When freshen’d Grass now bears it self upright, | ||
| And makes cool Banks to pleasing Rest invite, | ||
| Whence springs the Woodbind, and the Bramble-Rose, | ||
| And where the sleepy Cowslip shelter’d grows; | ||
| 15 | Whilst now a paler Hue the Foxglove takes, | |
| Yet checquers still with Red the dusky brakes: | ||
| When scatter’d Glow-worms, but in Twilight fine, | ||
| Shew trivial Beauties watch their Hour to shine; | ||
| Whilst Salisb’ry stands the Test of every Light, | ||
| 20 | In perfect Charms, and perfect Virtue bright: | |
| When Odours, which declin’d repelling Day, | ||
| Thro’ temp’rate Air uninterrupted stray; | ||
| When darken’d Groves their softest Shadows wear, | ||
| And falling Waters we distinctly hear; | ||
| 25 | When thro’ the Gloom more venerable shows | |
| Some ancient Fabrick, awful in Repose, | ||
| While Sunburnt Hills their swarthy Looks conceal, | ||
| And swelling Haycocks thicken up the Vale: | ||
| When the loos’d Horse now, as his Pasture leads, | ||
| 30 | Comes slowly grazing thro’ th’ adjoining Meads, | |
| Whose stealing Pace, and lengthen’d Shade we fear, | ||
| Till torn up Forage in his Teeth we hear: | ||
| When nibbling Sheep at large pursue their Food, | ||
| And unmolested Kine rechew the Cud; | ||
| 35 | When Curlews cry beneath the Village-walls, | |
| And to her straggling Brood the Partridge calls; | ||
| Their shortliv’d Jubilee the Creatures keep, | ||
| Which but endures, whilst Tyrant-Man do’s sleep: | ||
| When a sedate Content the Spirit feels, | ||
| 40 | And no fierce Light disturbs, whilst it reveals; | |
| But silent Musings urge the Mind to seek | ||
| Something, too high for Syllables to speak; | ||
| Till the free Soul to a compos’dness charm’d, | ||
| Finding the Elements of Rage disarm’d, | ||
| 45 | O’er all below a solemn Quiet grown, | |
| Joys in th’ inferiour World, and thinks it like her Own: | ||
| In such a Night let Me abroad remain, | ||
| Till Morning breaks, and All’s confus’d again; | ||
| Our Cares, our Toils, our Clamours are renew’d, | ||
| 50 | Or Pleasures, seldom reach’d, again pursu’d. |