Perching on the sceptred hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie
The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

I. 3.

Thee the voice, the dance, obey,
Temper'd to thy warbled lay.
O'er Idalia's velvet green

The rosy-crowned Loves are seen
On Cytherea's day

With antic Sport, and blue-eyed Pleasures,
Frisking light in frolic measures;
Now pursuing, now retreating,

Now in circling troops they meet:
To brisk notes in cadence beating,
Glance their many twinkling feet.
Slow melting strains their Queen's approach
declare :

Where'er she turns, the Graces homage pay. With arms sublime, that float upon the air, In gliding state she wins her easy way:

O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

Ver. 20. Perching on the sceptred hand] This is a weak imitation of some beautiful lines in the same ode. Ver. 25. Thee the vote, the dance, obey] Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body.

II. 1.

Man's feeble race what ills await! Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate The fond complaint, my song, disprove, And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he given in vain the heavenly muse?
Night and all her sickly dews,

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,
He gives to range the dreary sky;

Till down the eastern cliffs afar

Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts.

of war.

II. 2.

In climes beyond the solar road, Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains

roam,

The muse has broke the twilight gloom

To cheer the shivering native's dull abode.
And oft, beneath the odorous shade
Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,
In loose numbers wildly sweet,

Ver. 42.

To

Man's feeble race what ills await] compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the muse was given to mankind by the same Providence that sends the day, by its cheerful presence, to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night.

Ver. 54. In climes beyond the solar road] Exten

Their feather'd-cinctured chiefs and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and generous shame,

The' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

II. 3.

Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep, Isles, that crown the Ægean deep, Fields that cool Ilissus laves,

Or where Mæander's amber waves
In lingering labyrinths creep,

How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute, but to the voice of anguish !
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breathed around;
Every shade and hallow'd fountain
Murmur'd deep a solemn sound:

sive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations: its connection with Liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. [See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welsh fragments, the Lapland and American songs, &c.]

"Extra anni solisque vias"-VIRGIL.

"Tutta lontana dal camin del sole."

PETRARCH.

Ver. 66. Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep] Progress of Poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch.

The

Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,

Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains. Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power,

And coward Vice, that revels in her chains. When Latium had her lofty spirit lost, They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled

coast.

III. 1.

Far from the sun and summer gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,

To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: the dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little arms and smiled.
"This pencil take (she said), whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year:

Thine to these golden keys, immortal Boy!
This can unlock the gates of joy;

Of horror that, and thrilling fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears."

Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there. Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them; but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since.

GRAY has been long dead; the Poets of the present day rather imitate the Italian and early English Poets than the French.

Ver. 84.

In thy green lap was Nature's Darling

aid] "Nature's darling," SHAKSPEARE.

Nor second He, that rode sublime Upon the seraph wings of Ecstasy, The secrets of the' abyss to spy,

He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:

The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
Where angels tremble while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.

Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear

Two coursers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace.

Ver. 95. Nor second He, that rode subiime] MILTON.

Ver. 99. The living throne, the sapphire blaze] "For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. And above the firmament, that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone. This was the appearance of the glory of the Lord." EZEK. 1. 20, 26, 28.

Ver. 106. With necks in thunder clothed] "Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder ?" JOB.-This verse and the foregoing are meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes.

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