While some on earnest business bent
Their murm'ring labours piy

'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint To sweeten liberty:

Some bold adventurers disdain

The limits of their little reign,

And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs, by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,

That fly th' approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!

No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:

Yet see how all around 'em wait

The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's haleful train:

Ah, shew them where in ambush stand, To seize their prey, the murth'rous band Ah, tell them they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,

Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that sculks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,

That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,
That mocks the tear it forced to low;
And keen Remorse with blood defiled,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath
A griesly troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen:

This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That every labouring sinew strains,

Those in the deeper vitals rage:

Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,

That numbs the soul with icy hand,

And slow-consuming Age.

To each his suff'rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,

Th' unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate,

Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies?

Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, "Tis folly to be wise,

IV. TO ADVERSITY.

Ζήνα-

Τὸν φρονεῖν Βροτοὺς ὁδώσ
σαντα, τῷ πάθει μαθὰν
Θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν.

Eschylus, in Agamemnon

DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour
The Bad affright, afflict the Best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.
When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, design'd,
To thee he gave the heav'nly birth,

And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged Nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:

What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,

And leave us leisure to be good.

Light they disperse, and with them go

The summer Friend, the flattering Foe;

By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom in sable garb array'd,

Immersed in rapt'rous thought profound,

And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye, that loves the ground,

Still on thy solemn steps attend:
Warm Charity, the general friend,
With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head,

Dread Goddess, lay thy chast'ning hand!

Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Nor circled with the vengeful band

(As by the impious thou art seen)

With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.

Thy form benign, oh, Goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,

Thy philosophic train be there

To soften, not to wound my heart. The generous spark extinct revive, Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a Man.

V. THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

Pindaric.

Φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν· ἐς

Δὲ Χατίζει τὸ πάν, ἑρμηνέων.

Pindar, Olymp. II.

I. 1.

AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake,

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
+From Helicon's harmonious springs,
A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
The laughing flowers, that round them blow,
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.

Now the rich stream of music winds along

Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,

Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign:
Now rolling down the steep amain,

Headlong, impetuous, see it pour :

The rocks, and nodding groves, rebellow to the roar.

I. 2.

Oh! Sov'reign of the willing soul,

Parent of sweet and solemn breathing airs,

Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares,

And frantic Passions, hear thy soft control. On Thracia's hills the Lord of War

Has curb'd the fury of his car,

When the author first published this and the following Ode, he was advised, even by his friends, to subjoin some few explanatory notes; but had too much respect for the understanding of his readers to take that liberty.

The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The various sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all it touches, are here described, its quiet majestic progress euriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of number; and its more rapid and irresistible course, when swoln and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous passions. Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar.

The