An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
But if thy pre-existing soul

Was formed at first with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,

And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.

If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind!

Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich

ore;

Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find

Than was the beauteous frame she left be

hind:

Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial

O gracious God! how far have we Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy? Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, Debased to each obscene and impious use, Whose harmony was first ordained above For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love? O wretched we! why were we hurried down This lubrique and adulterate age

(Nay added fat pollutions of our own),

To increase the streaming ordures of the
stage ?

What can we say to excuse our second fall?
Let this thy vestal, heaven, atone for all:
Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled,
Unmixed with foreign filth, and undefiled;
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a
child.

*

Whenin mid air the golden trump shall sound, To raise the nations under ground: When in the valley of Jehoshaphat, The judging God shall close the book of fate, And there the last assizes keep

For those who wake and those who sleep: The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,

And foremost from the tomb shall bound, For they are covered with the lightest ground, And straight, with inborn vigor, on the wing, Like mountain larks, to the new morning sing. There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shall go, As harbinger of heaven, the way to show, The way which thou so well hast learnt below.

THE TWENTY-NINTH ODE OF THE THIRD BOOK OF HORACE;

PARAPHRASED IN PINDARIC VERSE.

ESCENDED of an ancient line,
That long the Tuscan sceptre
swayed,

Make haste to meet the generous wine,
Whose piercing is for thee delayed:
The rosy wreath is ready made,

And artful hands prepare

The fragrant Syrian oil that shall perfume thy hair.

When the wine sparkles from afar,

And the well-natured friend cries, Come

away,

Make haste, and leave thy business and thy

care:

No mortal interest can be worth thy stay.

Leave for a while thy costly country seat,
And, to be great indeed, forget

The nauseous pleasures of the great:
Make haste and come:

Come, and forsake thy cloying store,

Thy turret that surveys from high
The smoke and wealth and noise of Rome,
And all the busy pageantry

Phat wise men scorn and fools adore: Come, give thy soul a loose, and taste the pleasures of the poor.

Sometimes 't is grateful to the rich to try
A short vicissitude and fit of poverty:
A savory dish, a homely treat,
Where all is plain, where all is neat,
Without the stately spacious room,
The Persian carpet or the Tyrian loom,
Clear up the cloudy foreheads of the great.

The sun is in the Lion mounted high;
The Syrian star

Barks from afar,

And with his sultry breath infects the sky; The ground below is parched, the heavens above

us fry.

The shepherd drives his fainting flock

Beneath the covert of a rock, And seeks refreshing rivulets nigh: The Sylvans to their shades retire, Those very shades and streams new shades and streams require,

And want a cooling breeze of wind to fan the raging fire.

Thou, what befits the new Lord Mayor,
And what the city factions dare,
And what the Gallic arms will do,
And what the quiver-bearing foe,
Art anxiously inquisitive to know:
But God has wisely hid from human sight
The dark decrees of future fate,

And sown their seeds in depth of night;
He laughs at all the giddy turns of state,
When mortals search too soon and fear too
late.

Enjoy the present smiling hour,

And put it out of fortune's power:

The tide of business, like the running stream, Is sometimes high and sometimes low,

A quiet ebb or a tempestuous flow,