ODE TO THE THAMES, FOR THE YEAR 1719.
ING of the Floods, whom friendly stars ordain
To fold alternate in thy winding train,
The lofty palace and the fertile vale;
King of the Floods, Britannia's darling, hail!
Hail with the year so well begun,
And bid his each revolving fun,
Taught by thy streams, in smooth fucceffion run.
From thy never-failing urn
Flowers, bloom and fair increafe
With the seasons take their turn;
From thy tributary feas
Tides of various wealth attend thee;
Seas and feasons all befriend thee.
Here on thy banks, to mate the skies,
Augufta's hallow'd domes arife ;
And there thy ample bofom pours
Her numerous fouls and floating towers;
Whose terrors late to vanquish'd Spain were known,
And Ætna shook with thunder not her own.
Fullest flags thou dost sustain,
While thy banks confine thy courfe ;
Emblem of our Cæfar's reign,
Mingling clemency and force,
So may'ft thou ftill, fecur'd by distant wars,
Ne'er ftain thy crystal with domestic jars :
As Cæfar's reign, to Britain ever dear,
Shall join with thee to bless the coming year.
On thy fhady margin,
Care its load discharging,
Is lull'd to gentle rest:
Britain thus disarming,
Nor no more alarming,
Shall fleep on Cæfar's breaft
VII.
Sweet to diftrefs is balmy fleep,
To fleep aufpicious dreams,
Thy meadows, Thames, to feeding sheep,
To thirst, thy filver ftreams :
More sweet than all, the praise
Of Cæfar's golden days:
Cæfar's praise is sweeter;
Britain's pleasure greater;
Still may Cæfar's reign excel;
Sweet the praife of reigning well.
CHORU S.
Gentle Janus, ever wait,
As now, on Britain's kindest fate;
Crown all our vows, and all thy gifts bestow;
Till Time no more renews his date,
And Thames forgets to flow.
THE STORY OF GLAUCUS AND SCYLLA, FROM OVID'S METAMORPHOSES, BOOK XIII.
ERE ceas'd the nymph; the fair assembly broke;
The fea-green Nereids to the waves betook :
While Scylla, fearful of the wide-spread main,
Swift to the safer shore returns again.
There o'er the fandy margin, unarray`d,
With printless footsteps flies the bounding maid;
Or in fome winding creek's secure retreat
She bathes her weary limbs,and shuns the noonday's heat.
Her Glaucus faw, as o'er the deep he rode,
New to the feas, and late receiv'd a god.
He faw, and languish'd for the virgin's love,
With many an artful blandishment he strove
Her flight to hinder, and her fears remove.
The more he fues, the more she wings her flight,
And nimbly gains a neighbouring mountain's height,
Steep shelving to the margin of the flood,
A neighbouring mountain bare and woodless stood ;
Here, by the place fecur'd, her steps the stay'd,
And, trembling ftill, her lover's form furvey'd.
His fhape, his hue, her troubled fenfe appall,
And dropping locks that o'er his fhoulders fall;
She fees his face divine, and manly brow,
End in a fish's wreathy tail below:
She fees, and doubts within her anxious mind,
Whether he comes of god, or monster kind.
This Glaucus foon perceiv'd; and, Oh! forbear
(His hand fupporting on a rock lay near)
Forbear, he cry'd, fond maid, this needlefs fear.
Nor fish am I, nor monfter of the main,
But equal with the watery gods I reign ;
Nor Proteus nor Palæmon me excell,
Nor he whose breath infpires the founding shell.
My birth, 'tis true, I owe to mortal race,
And I myself but late a mortal was :
Ev'n then in feas, and feas alone, I joy'd;
The feas my hours, and all my cares, employ'd.
In meshes now the twinkling prey I drew
Now skilfully the flender line I threw,
And filent fate the moving float to view.
Not far from shore, there lies a verdant mead,
With herbage half, and half with water spread :
There, nor the horned heifers browsing stray,
Nor fhaggy kids nor wanton lambkins play;
There, nor the founding bees their nectar cull,
Nor rural fwains their genial chaplets pull;
Nor flocks, nor herds, nor mowers, haunt the place,
To crop the flowers, or cut the bushy grafs :,
Thither, sure first of living race came I,
And fat by chance, my dropping nets to dry.
My fcaly prize, in order all difplay'd,
By number on the greenfword there I lay'd,
My captives, whom or in my nets I took,
Or hung unwary on my wily hook.
Strange to behold! yet what avails a lye?
I faw them bite the grafs, as I fate by;
Then fudden darting o'er the verdant plain,
They spread their finns, as in their native main:
I paus'd, with wonder ftruck, while all my prey
Left their new mafter, and regain'd the fea.
Amaz'd, within my secret self I fought,
What god, what herb, the miracle had wrought:
But fure no herbs have power like this, I cry'd;
And ftrait I pluck'd fome neighbouring herbs, and try'd.
Scarce had I bit, and prov'd the wondrous tafte,
When ftrong convulfions shook my troubled breaft;
I felt my heart grow fond of fomething strange,
And my whole nature labouring with a change.
Reftlefs I grew, and every place forfook,
And ftill upon the feas I bent my look.
Farewell, for ever! farewell, land! I faid;
And plung'd amidst the waves my finking head.
The gentle powers, who that low empire keep,
Receiv'd me as a brother of the deep;
To Tethys, and to Ocean old, they pray,
To purge my mortal earthy parts away.
The watery parents to their fuit agreed,
And thrice nine times a fecret charm they read,
Then with luftrations purify my limbs,
And bid me bathe beneath a hundred ftreams:
A hundred streams from various fountains run,
And on my head at once come rushing down.
Thus far each passage I remember well,
And faithfully thus far the tale I tell;
But then oblivion dark on all my fenfes fell.
Again at length my thought reviving came,
When I no longer found myself the fame;
Then first this fea-green beard I felt to grow,
And these large honours on my fpreading brow;
My long-defcending locks the billows fweep,
And my broad fhoulders cleave the yielding deep;
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