Thou, who with hermit heart

Disdain'st the wealth of art,
And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall:

But com'ít a decent maid,

In Attic robe array'd,
O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I call !

By all the honey'd store

On Hybla's thymy shore,
By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear,

By her, whose love-lorn woe,

In evening musings flow,
Sooth'd sweetly sad Electra's poet's car :

By old Cephilus deep,

Who spread his wavy sweep
In warbled wanderings round thy green retreat,

On whose enamel'd fide,

When holy Freedom died,
No equal haunt allur'd thy future feet.

O sister meek of Truth,

To my admiring youth,
Thy sober aid and native charms infuse !

The flowers that sweetest breathe,

Though beauty culld the wreathe,
Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues.

While Rome could none esteem,

But virtue's patriot theme,
You lov'd her hills, and led her laureate band;

But

But staid to sing alone

To one diftinguish'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 foul !

Of these let others ask,

To aid some mighty talk,
I only seek to find thy temperate vale :

Where oft my reed might found

To maids and shepherds round,
And all thy fons, O Nature, learn my tale.

ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER.

As , ,

S once, if not with light regard,

I read aright that gifted Bard, (Him whose school above the rest His loveliest Elfin queen has blest)

One,

1

One, only one unrival'd fair*
Might hope the magic girdle wear,
At folemn tournay 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 chafte and angel-friend to virgin-fame,

With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band, It left unblest her loath'd dishonour'd fide;

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 divineft name,

To whom, prepar'd and bath'd in heaven,
The cest of amplest power is given,
To few the god-like gift assigns,
To gird their blest prophetic loins,

her visions wild, and feel unmix'd her fame.
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,
Long by the lov'd enthusiast wood,
Himself in some diviner mood,
Retiring, fate with her alone,
And plac'd her on his fapphire throne,

And gaze

* Florimel. See Spenser, Leg. 4.

The

3

The whiles, the vaulted shrine around, Seraphic wires were heard to sound, Now sublimest triumph swelling ; Now on love and mercy dwelling; And she, from out the veiling cloud, Breath'd her magic notes aloud : And thou, thou rich-hair'd youth of morn, And all thy subject life was born ? The dangerous passions kept aloof, Far from the sainted growing woof: But near it sate ecstatic Wonder, Listening the deep applauding thunder: And Truth, in funny vest array’d, By whose the Tarsol's eyes were made; All the shadowy tribes of Mind, In braided dance their murmurs join’d, And all the bright uncounted powers, Who feed on heaven's ambrosial flowers. Where is the Bard, whose soul can now Its high presuming hopes avow? Where he who thinks, with rapture blind, This hallow'd work for him design'd? High on some cliff, to heaven up-pild, Of rude access, of prospect wild, Where, tangled round the jealous steep, Strange shades o'erbrow the vallies deep, And holy Genii guard the rock, Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock, While on its rich ambitious head, 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,
Nigh spher'd 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, My trembling feet his guiding steps pursue;

In vain-Such bliss to one alone,
Of all the sons of soul was known,
And Heaven, and Fancy, kindred powers,

Have now o’erturn’d th' inspiring bowers,
Or curtain'd close such scene from every future view,

O DE.

Written in the year 1746.

a

H
OW sleep the brave, who sink to rest,

By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter fod,
Than Fancy's fet have ever trod
By Fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall a while repair,
To dwell a weeping herinit there!

a

ODE