Thou, who with hermit heart

Difdain'ft the wealth of art,

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall:
But com'ft 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, whofe love-lorn woe,

In evening mufings flow,

Sooth'd sweetly fad Electra's poet's ear:

By old Cephifus deep,

Who fpread his wavy fweep

In warbled wanderings round thy green retreat,

On whofe enamel'd fide,

When holy Freedom died,

No equal haunt allur'd thy future feet.

O fifter meek of Truth,

To my admiring youth,

Thy fober aid and native charms infuse!
The flowers that sweetest breathe,

Though beauty cull'd 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 ftaid to fing alone

To one diftinguish'd throne,

And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land.

No more, in hall or bower,

The paffions own thy power,

Love, only Love, her forcelefs numbers mean:
For thou haft left her shrine,

Nor olive more, nor vine,

Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene.

Though tafte, though genius bless

To fome divine excess,

Faint's the cold work till thou infpire the whole;
What each, what all supply,

May court, may charm our eye,

Thou, only thou, canft raise the meeting foul!

Of these let others afk,

To aid fome mighty task,

I only feek to find thy temperate vale :
Where oft my reed might found

To maids and fhepherds round,

And all thy fons, O Nature, learn

my tale.

ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER.

AS once, if not with light regard,

I read aright that gifted Bard, (Him whofe fchool above the rest His loveliest Elfin queen has bleft)

One,

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 unfeen, fome hovering hand,
Some chafte and angel-friend to virgin-fame,
With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band,
It left unbleft 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 divinest name,
To whom, prepar’d and bath'd in heaven,
The ceft of ampleft power is given,

To few the god-like gift affigns,

To gird their bleft prophetic loins,

And

gaze her vifions wild, and feel unmix'd her flame. The band, as fairy legends fay,

Was wove on that creating day,

When he, who call'd with thought to birth

Yon tented fky, this laughing earth,

And dreft with fprings, and forests tall,

And pour'd the main engirting all,
Long by the lov'd enthusiast woo'd,
Himfelf in fome diviner mood,
Retiring, fate with her alone,

And plac'd her on his sapphire throne,

*Florimel. See Spenfer, Leg. 4.

The

The whiles, the vaulted fhrine around,
Seraphic wires were heard to sound,
Now fublimeft triumph fwelling;
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 fubject life was born?
The dangerous paffions kept aloof,
Far from the fainted growing woof:
But near it fate ecstatic Wonder,
Liftening the deep applauding thunder:
And Truth, in funny veft array'd,
By whose the Tarfol'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 ambrofial flowers.
Where is the Bard, whofe foul can now
Its high prefuming hopes avow?
Where he who thinks, with rapture blind,
This hallow'd work for him defign'd?
High on fome cliff, to heaven up-pil'd,
Of rude accefs, of profpect wild,
Where, tangled round the jealous steep,
Strange fhades o'erbrow the vallies deep,
And holy Genii guard the rock,
Its glooms embrown, its fprings unlock,
While on its rich ambitious head,
An Eden, like his own, lies fpread.

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 fhades retreating,
With many a vow from Hope's afpiring tongue,
My trembling feet his guiding steps purfue;
In vain-Such blifs to one alone,

Of all the fons of foul 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.

OD E.

Written in the year 1746.

Ho

OW fleep the brave, who fink to rest,
By all their country's wishes bleft!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mold,
She there fhall drefs a fweeter fod,
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod

By Fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unfeen their dirge is fung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To blefs the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom fhall a while repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

ODE