While Rome could none esteem But virtue's patriot theme, You loved her hills, and led her laureate band; But staid to sing alone To one distinguish'd throne, And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land. No more, in hall or bower, The passions own thy power. Love, only Love, her forceless numbers mean; For thou hast left her shrine, Nor olive more, nor vine, Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene. Though taste, though genius, bless To some divine excess, Faint's the cold work till thou inspire the whole: What each, what all supply, May court, may charm our eye, Thou! only thou canst raise the meeting soul! Of these let others ask, To aid some mighty task, I only seek to find thy temperate vale: To maids and shepherds round, And all thy sons, O Nature! learn my tale. ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER. As once, if not with light regard, I read aright that gifted bard Florimel. See Spenser, Leg. 4th. At solemn turney hung on high, The wish of each love-darting eye. Lo! to each other nymph in turn applied, As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand, Some chaste and angel-friend to virgin-fame, With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band, It left unblest her loathed dishonour'd side; Happier, hopeless fair, if never Her baffled hand with vain endeavour Had touch'd that fatal zone to her denied! Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name, To whom, prepared and bathed in heaven, To few the god-like gift assigns, To gird their blest prophetic loins, And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmix'd her flame, The band, as fairy legends say, Was wove on that creating day, When He, who call'd with thought to birth Yon tented sky, this laughing earth, And drest with springs, and forests tall, And pour'd the main engirting all, And placed her on his sapphire throne, And thou, thou rich-hair'd youth of morn, C The dangerous passions kept aloof, Listening the deep applauding thunder ↑ An Eden, like his own, lies spread, I view that oak, the fancied glades among, By which, as Milton lay, his evening ear, From many a cloud that dropp'd ethereal dew, Night sphered in heaven its native strains could hear; On which that ancient trump he reach'd was hung: Thither oft his glory greeting, From Waller's myrtle shades retreating, With many a vow from Hope's aspiring tongue, Have now o'erturn'd th' inspiring bowers, Or curtain'd close such scenes from every future view, ODE, WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCXLVI. How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By fairy hands their knell is rung, TO MERCY. Strophe. O THOU! who sitt'st a smiling bride, And hidest in wreaths of flowers his bloodless sword! Thou who, amidst the deathful field, By godlike chiefs alone beheld, Oft with thy bosom bare art found, Pleading for him, the youth who sinks to ground: wound! :D Antistrophe. When he whom even our joys provoke, The fiend of Nature, join'd his yoke, And rushed in wrath to make our isle his Thy form, from out thy sweet abode, O'ertook him on his blasted road, prey: And stopp'd his wheels, and look'd his rage away. That bore him swift to savage deeds, Thy tender melting eyes they own: O maid! for all thy love in Britain shewn, Where Justice bars her iron tower, To thee we build a roseate bower, Thou, thou shalt rule our queen, and share our monarch's throne! TO LIBERTY. Strophe. WHO shall awake the Spartan fife, At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest, At Wisdom's shrine awhile its flame concealing, (What place so fit to seal a deed renown'd?) Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing, When most its sounds would court thy ears, E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears. |