The laughing flowers, that round them blow, Drink life and fragrance as they flow.

Now the rich stream of music winds along

Deep, majestic, fmooth, and strong,

Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign:

Now rowling down the steep amain,

Headlong, impetuous, fee it pour :

The rocks, and nodding groves rebellow to the

[roar.

The fubject and fimile, as ufual with Pindar, are united. The various fources of poetry, which gives life and luftre to all it touches, are here defcribed; its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwife dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers; and its more rapid and irresistible course, when fwoln and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous paffions.

Oh!

I. 2.

*Oh! Sovereign of the willing foul,

Parent of sweet and folemn-breathing airs,

Enchanting shell! 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 drop'd his thirsty lance at thy command. + Perching on the scept'red hand

* Power of harmony to calm the turbulent fallies of the foul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar.

This is a weak imitation of fome incomparable lines in

the fame Ode.

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king

With ruffled plumes, and flagging wing:
Quench'd in dark clouds of flumber lie

The terror of his beak, and light'nings of his

eye.

I. 3.

*Thee the voice, the dance, obey,

Temper'd to thy warbled lay.

O'er Idalia's velvet-green

The rofy-crowned Loves are seen

On Cytherea's day

With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures,

Frifking light in frolic measures;

* Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in

the body.

Now

Now pursuing, now retreating,

Now in circling troops they meet:

To brifk notes in cadence beating

* Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Slow melting ftrains their Queen's approach de[clare: Where'er she 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 bosom, move
The bloom of young Defire, and purple light of

[Love.

Μαρμαρυγὰς θυεῖτο ποδῶν· θαύμαζε δὲ θυμῷ. HOMER. Od. →.

* Λάμπει δ ̓ ἐπὶ πορφυρέησι

Παρείησι φῶς ἔρωτος.

PHRYNICHUS, apud Athenæum.

2

II. I.

II. I.

* Man's feeble race what Ills await,

Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,

Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, fad refuge from the storms of Fate!

The fond complaint, my Song, difprove,

And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Mufe?

Night, and all her fickly dews,

Her Spectres wan, and Birds of boding cry, He gives to range the dreary sky:

* To compenfate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to Mankind by the fame Providence that fends the Day by its chearful prefence to difpel the gloom and terrors of the Night.