To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,

That mocks the tear it forced to flow
And keen Remorse, with blood defiled,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

Lo! in the vale of years beneath,
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen :
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,

The' unfeeling for his own.

Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies ?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more ;-where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

TO ADVERSITY.

Ζήνα

Τὸν φρονεῖν Βροτοὺς ὁδώ-
σαντα, τὸν πάθει μαθὰν
Θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν.

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,
And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend:
Warm Charity, the general friend,
With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly pleasing tear.

Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head,
Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band
(As by the impious thou art seen);

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 milder influence impart,

Thy philosophic train be there

To soften, not to wound my heart.

The generous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love, and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a Man.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A PINDARIC ODE.

Φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν· ἐς
Δὲ τὸ πὰν ἑρμηνέων
Χατίζει.

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,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,

Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;
Now rolling down the steep amain,

Headlong, impetuous, see it pour :

The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the

roar.

I. 2.

Oh! Sovereign of the willing soul,
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares

And frantic Passions hear thy soft control.
On Thracia's hills the Lord of War
Has curb'd the fury of his car,

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.