THE

PARNASSIAN GARLAND,

FOR JUNE, 1799.

TO THE SUN.

A FRAGMENT,

(Concluded from page 75.)

R art thou nature's eye, to whofe keen fight
The fyftem's utmost circle naked lies?-

Oh, tell a curious mortal all thou seeft!

Say, by what various beings tenanted,
The orbs that borrow thy refulgent blaze;

Made of what matter; moulded to what form;
Bleft with what organs; with what minds inform'd;
Spuir'd by what paffions; on what arts intent:
Eager in what pursuits; and by what ties
Combin'd:-Oh, fay, all-fearching radiance, fay,
(For doubtless moral and immortal all,)
Taught by what discipline the generous love
Of beauteous virtue; to what duties call'd;
By what temptations urg'd to act those deeds
Which ftain thy day, and by what motives fir'd,
With moral splendours, to outfhine thy beams.
Say, radiant witness, if around thee move
A world, on whose o'erwatching angel's cheek
There rolls a tear fo fad, there glows a blush
Of hue fo deep, as our dark scene hath caus'd
In the griev'd feraph, who this circling earth
Wheels in her courfe, and with his guardian wing
O'erfhades from ill? All-feeing fplendour, tell,
In any other globe that drinks thy rays,
VOL. VII.

Swerves moral life, as here it fwerves, from right?
Fall elsewhere thy pure beams, as here they fall,
On scenes whofe colours will not bear the light?
Seeft thou, in other feats of being, fraud,
Industrious deceiver, fpinning fine
Her artful web of complicated lines,
To catch fimplicity's unheedful wing?
Or meet thy view th' oppreffive and th' proud,
Who on their fellows look contemptuous down,
And o'er them walk, as reptiles in their path?
Or opens, fhock'd, thy mild, and morning eye
Upon the mangled lifeless shrine that lodged
God's holy likenefs, an immortal mind,
That for this violation loud arraigns
One, in the same celestial image fram'd,
Who, (foul abufer of the friendly gloom
Thy feasonable abfence kindly made,
To cheer, by freshening stops, the race of life,}
Glid to the fleeper's couch, and feal'd his eyes
In everlasting flumbers; while his own

Abhorr'd thy rise, and deem'd the bluthing east
Lurid and gloomy as the shades of death?

Or stalks the murderer forth, and braves the day,
As in our theatre of ills he talks,

With fwarms of dire accomplices colleagued,
Countless as locufts in their blackest cloud,
Of reafoning verm.in an o'erwhelming plague !
Moft noxious clafs of all-destructive things!
To whofe vaft rage, and arch malignity,
The living curfes torrid Afric breeds,

Where quicken'd venom breathes, and monsters
thrive,

Are nature's innocence, and golden reign!
Artists in mischief! keen inventive pefts!

Before whom all the blooming landscape fmiles,
(Ah, vainly smiles, their fury to disarm!)

While nought but dreary wafte behind them gloomas,
The difmal veftige of their withering courfe?
Or ftands our hapless planet all alone
And fingular in folly ? only ftar,

Of all thy beams illumine, where thy lamp

Rifes to light the ugly works of vice,
Or fets to veil them from detection's eye?
Eccentric orb, in whofe wild fcene alone,
The beams of intellectual radiance shine,
And shine not all benignly like thine own?
Or wilt thou tell, of thy revolving spheres,
Which wears the bays of genius? whofe quick fons
Have shot, with fartheft wing, into the field
Of nature's works; or moft fublimely foar'd,
On eagle pinions, to that parent fun,
At whose eternal glories thine were lit ?
Say, haft thou feen a creature's compass take
An ampler sweep over the dread immense,
Than that which turned obedient to the hand
Of him we Newton name, our earth's proud boaft?
Or, in which world of this our neighbourhood,
Hath there been wav'd a wand of mightier call
Than our renown'd, immortal Shakespeare mov'd
O'er nothing's vait profound, and faid, let be,
And, lo, it was! lo, a bright universe
Of great and fair, of tranfports, and of woes,
And charming fears! in bards or fages, fay,
Which is the ball that bears away the prize?

ODE FOR HIS MAJESTY's BIRTH DAY, 1799.

WRITTEN BY

HENRY JAMES PYE, Esq.

SET TO MUSIC BY SIR WILLIAM PARSONS,

STILL

fhall the brazen

tongue of war

Drown every fofter found!

Still fhall Ambition's iron car

Its crimson axles whirl around!
Shall the fweet lyre and flute no more,
With gentle defcant foothe the shore,
Pour, in melodious ftrain, the votive lay,

And hail, in notes of peace, our Monarch's natal day?

O, feraph Peace! to thee the eye
Looks onward with delighted gaze;
For thee the matron breathes the figh,

To thee their vows the virgins raise;
For thee the warrior cuts his course
Thro' armies rang'd in martial force:
Tho' diftant far thy holy form is feen,
And mountains rife, and oceans roll between,
Yet every fword that war unsheathes,

And every shout that conquest breathes,
Serve but to make thy blefs'd return more fure,
Thy glorious form more bright, thy empire more secure.
When north ward, from his wint'ry gaol,
Returns the radiant god of day,
And, climbing from th' antarctic pole,
Pours every hour a stronger ray,
Yet, as he mounts thro' vernal figns,
Oft with diminish'd beams he shines;
Arm'd with the whirlwind's ftormy force,
Rude March arrefts his fiery course,
Sweeps o'er the bending wood, and roars
Infuriate round the wave-worn thores:
O'er the young bud, while April pours
The pearly hail's ungenial fhowers;
Yet balmy gales, and cloudless skies,
Shall hence in bright fucceffion rife;
Hence Maia's flowers the brow of fpring adorn,
Hence fummer's waving fields, and autumn's plenteous
horn.

From climes where Hyperborean rigours frown,

See his bold bands the warlike veteran bring;
Rous'd by the royal youth's renown,

Loud Auftria's eagle claps her vigorous wing
Mid fair Hefperia's ravag'd dales,

The shouts of war the Gallic plunderers hear,
The avenging arm of justice learn to fear,

And low his creft th' infulting defpot veils:

While their collected navy's force,

Spreads o'er the wave its defultory course,
From Britain's guardian fleet receding far,

Their proudest wrath to fcape, nor meet the shock of war.

TR

MORNING.

RUE as the morning fun quits eastern skies,
And o'er the earth his genial influence flings,
To cheer the drooping, bid the flumb'ring rife,
Strait from his lowly-bed the plough-boy springs ;
And o'er the furrow'd field directs his team,
Whift'ling aloud his last learnt favʼrite air,
And hails the morn, and hails the cheering beam,
That drives away the gloomy ghost of care.
With well fill'd fcrip across his shoulders thrown,
The fchool-boy now falutes the new-born day,
And, wand'ring o'er the dewy lawns alone,
Loiters at ev'ry ftile his time away.

The lively fongfters, with exulting wing,
Now foar aloft, now warble in the grove;
And live but to be happy, and to fing

To each returning morn, returning strains of love.
Then happy he, who in the morn of life
Attains thofe pleasures which can never cloy;
For in this various gloomy day of strife,
There's much to endure, but little to enjoy.

CIVIS.

ODE TO EVENING.

OW along the evening sky,

N Twilight leads her fombre train;

Now the hills in fhadow lie,

Now the foreft, now the plain.

See the fun's occiduous rays

Quiver o'er yon dimpled stream;
Hark, from yonder bloomy fprays,

Sweet birds warble-glow-worms gleam.

Now the shepherd tunes his reed,
Now the sturdy woodman yields,

Now the steers forfake the glebe,

And lowing, cross the verdant fields.