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With fereaming Horror's fun'ral cry,

Despair, and fell Disease, and ghaftly Poverty. 40

Thy form benign, O Goddess! wear,
Thy milder influence impart,

Thy philofophic tram be there,
To foften, not to wound, my heart:
The gen'rous fpark extinct revive ;
Teach me to love and to forgive ;
Exact my own defects to fcan,

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,
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.

Now the rich stream of mufic winds along
Deep, majestic, fmooth, and strong,

Thro' verdant vales and Ceres' golden reign;
Now rolling down the fteep amain,

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,
Enchanting fhell! the fullen Cares

And frantic Paffions hear thy foft controul.
On Thracia's hills the Lord of War
Has curb'd the fury of his car,

And dropp'd his thirfly lance at thy command:
Perching on the fceptred hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing;

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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.

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To brifk notes in cadence beating
Glance their many-twinkling feet.

35

Slow-melting ftrains their queen's approach declare;
Where'er the turns the Graces homage pay:

With arms fublime, that float upon the air,
In gliding state she wins her easy way:

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?
Night and all her fickly dews,

Her fpectres wan, and birds of boding cry,
He gives to range the dreary sky,

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,
The Mufe has broke the twilight-gloom
To cheer the fhiv'ring native's dull abode :
And oft' beneath the od'rous fhade

Of Chili's boundless forefts laid,

She deigns to hear the favage youth repeat,
In loofe numbers, wildly fweet,`

60

Or feen the morning's well-appointed ftar,
Come marching up the eaftern hills afar.

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.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,

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,
Fields that cool Iliffus laves,

Or where Mæander's amber waves

In ling'ring lab'rinths creep,

How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute but to the voice of Anguish?
Where each old poetic mountain
Infpiration breath'd around,

70

Ev'ry fhade and hallow'd fountain

Murmur'd deep a folemn found,

75

Till the fad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,
Left their Parnaffus for the Latian plains:
Alike they fcorn the pomp of tyrant Pow'r
And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty fpirit loft,
They fought, oh, Albion! next thy fea-encircled

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,

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