William Thompson, 1763 (1712?-1766?)
“In Shakespeare’s Walk.”
By yon hills, with morning spread,
Lifting up the tufted head,
By those golden waves of corn,
Which the laughing fields adorn,
By the fragrant breath of flowers,
Stealing from the woodbine bowers,
By this thought-inspiring shade,
By the gleamings of the glade,
By the babblings of the brook,
Winding slow in many a crook,
By the rustling of the trees,
By the humming of the bees,
By the woodlark, by the thrush,
Wildly warbling from the bush,
By the fairy’s shadowy tread
O’er the cowslip’s dewy head,
Father, monarch of the stage,
Glory of Eliza’s age,
Shakespeare! deign to lend thy face,
This romantic nook to grace,
Where untaught nature sports alone,
Since thou and nature are but one.
Garden Inscriptions. Poetical Calendar, 1763. First reprinted in Anderson’s Poets of Great Britain, 1794, vol. x. p. 993.