With fereaming Horror's fun'ral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghaftly Poverty. 40 Thy form benign, O Goddess! wear, Thy philofophic tram be there, 45 What others are to feel, and know myself a man. 48 190000 ODE V. THE PROGRESS OF POESY. ADVERTISEMENT. PINDARICK. When the Author first published this and the following Ode, he was advised, even by his Friends, to fubjoin fome few explanatory Notes, but had too much refpect for the Understanding of his Readers to take that Liberty. I. I. AWAKE, Æolian lyre! awake,* And give to rapture all thy trembling strings; From Helicon's harmonious fprings A thousand rills their mazy progress take; * Awake, my glory! awake, lute and harp. David's Pfalms. Pindar ftyles his own poetry, with it's mufical ac. companiments, Æolian fong, Æolian ftrings, the breath of the Zolian flute. The fubject and fimile, The laughing flow'rs, that round them blow, Now the rich stream of mufic winds along Thro' verdant vales and Ceres' golden reign; Headlong, impetuous, see it pour; ΤΟ The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar. I. 2. Oh! Sov'reign of the willing foul, Parent of sweet and folemn-breathing airs, And frantic Paffions hear thy foft controul. And dropp'd his thirfly lance at thy command: Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king as ufual with Pindar, are here united. The various fources of poetry, which gives life and luftre to all it touches, are here defcribed, as well in it's quiet majeftic progrefs, enriching every fubject (otherwife dry and barren) with all the pomp of diction, and luxuriant harmony of numbers, as in it's more rapid and irrefiftible courfe, when fwollen and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous paffions + Power of harmony to calm the turbulent paffions of the foul. The thoughts are borrowed from the firft Pythian of Pindar. This is a weak imitation of fome beautiful lines in the fame ode. Quench'd in dark clouds of flumber lie The terror of his beak and light'nings of his eye. To brifk notes in cadence beating 35 Slow-melting ftrains their queen's approach declare; With arms fublime, that float upon the air, O'er her warm cheek and rifing bofom move 40 The bloom of young defire and purple light of love. II. 1. Man's feeble race what ills await! ¶ Labour and Penury, the racks of Pain, + Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body. To compenfate the real or imaginary ills of life, the Mufe was given to mankind by the fame Providence that fends the day by it's chearful prefence to difpel the gloom and terrors of the night. Difeafe, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, fad refuge from the ftorms of Fate! 45 The fond complaint, my Song! difprove, And juftify the laws of Jove. Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Mufe? Her fpectres wan, and birds of boding cry, 50 Till down the eastern cliffs afar ↑ Hyperion's march they spy and glitt'ring fhafts of war. II. 2. In climes beyond the Solar Road, § 56 Where fhaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, Of Chili's boundless forefts laid, She deigns to hear the favage youth repeat, 60 Or feen the morning's well-appointed ftar, Corrley. Extenfive influence of poetic genius over the remoteft and moft uncivilized nations; it's connection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. (See the Erfe, Norwegian, and Welth Fragments, the Lapland an American Songs, &c.) § Extra anni folifque vias. Virgil. Tutta lontana dal camin del fole. Petrarch, Canz. Za Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs and dufky loves. Glory purfue, and gen'rous shame, 64 Th' unconquerable mind and freedom's holy flame. II. 3. Woods that wave o'er Delphi's steep, || Ifles that crown th' gean deep, Or where Mæander's amber waves In ling'ring lab'rinths creep, How do your tuneful echoes languish, 70 Ev'ry fhade and hallow'd fountain Murmur'd deep a folemn found, 75 Till the fad Nine, in Greece's evil hour, 80 [coaft. Progrefs of poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unac quainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their tafte there: Spencer imitated the Italian writers, Milton improved on them: but this fchool expired foon after the Reftoration, and a new one arofe, on the French model, which has fubfifted ever fince, |