To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, The stings of Falsehood those shall try That mocks the tear it forced to flow Lo! in the vale of years beneath, More hideous than their queen : To each his sufferings: all are men, The tender for another's pain, The' unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, And happiness too swiftly flies ? TO ADVERSITY. Ζήνα Τὸν φρονεῖν Βροτοὺς ὁδώ- ÆSCHYLUS. DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power, Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge and torturing hour The bad affright, afflict the best! Bound in thy adamantine chain, The proud are taught to taste of pain, And purple tyrants vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. When first thy sire to send on earth Virtue, his darling child, design'd, To thee he gave the heavenly birth, And bade to form her infant mind. Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore: What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good. Light they disperse, and with them go The summer friend, the flattering foe; By vain Prosperity received, To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. Wisdom in sable garb array'd Immersed in rapturous thought profound, With leaden eye that loves the ground, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly pleasing tear. Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head, Not circled with the vengeful band With thundering voice, and threatening mien, With screaming Horror's funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty: Thy form benign, oh goddess, wear, Thy philosophic train be there To soften, not to wound my heart. The generous spark extinct revive, What others are to feel, and know myself a Man. THE PROGRESS OF POESY. A PINDARIC ODE. Φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν· ἐς 1. 1. AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake, PINDAR. And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. From Helicon's harmonious springs A thousand rills their mazy progress take: The laughing flowers, that round them blow, Drink life and fragrance as they flow. Awake, Ver. 1. Awake, Eolian lyre, awake] my glory awake, lute and harp." DAVID'S PSALMS. VARIATION." Awake, my lyre: my glory, wake." Pindar styles his own poetry, with its musical accompaniments, Αἰοληΐς μολπὴ, Αἰόλιδες χορδαὶ, Now the rich stream of music winds along, Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign; Headlong, impetuous, see it pour : The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar. I. 2. Oh! Sovereign of the willing soul, And frantic Passions hear thy soft control. And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command. Αἰολίδων πνοαὶ αὐλῶν, • #olian song, Folian strings, the breath of the Eolian flute.' The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The various sources of poetry, which give life and lustre to all it touches, are here described; its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers; and its more rapid and irresistible course, when swoln and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous passions. Ver. 13. Oh Sovereign of the willing soul] Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Piudar. |