HYMN TO ADVERSITY.
DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,

Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scoarge, and torturing 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 heavenly 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. Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,

And leave as leisure to be good.
Light they dispers e, and with them go
The summer friend, the flattering foe;
By vain Prosperity receiv'd,
To ber they vow their truth, and are again believ'd.
Wisdom, in sable garb array'd,

Immers'd in rapturous 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 chastening hand !
Not in thy gorgon terrours clad,

Nor circled with the vengeful band,
(As by the impious thou art seen,)
With thandering voice, and threatening mien,
With screaming Horrour'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;

my own defects to scan, What others are to feel, and know myself a man.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

Or busy housewife ply her evening care: No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds :
Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,

The moping owl does to the Moon complain
Of such as, wandering near ber secret bower,

Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team a-field !

How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave, Await alike th' inevitable hour :

The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye Proud ! impute to these the fault,

If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where, thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,

The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,

Or wak'd to ecstacy the living lyre.
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,

Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear :
Full many a flow'r is born to blush anseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast

The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,

The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their histry in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbad; nor circumscrib'd alone

Their growing virtues but their crimes contin'd; Forbad to wade thro' slaughter to a throne,

And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

Bxact

ELEGY

WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Beneath those ragged elms, that yew-tree's shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the bamlet sleep.

The untaught harmony of Spring: While, whispering pleasnre as they fiy, Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky

Their gather'd fragrance fling. Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch

A broader, browner shade;
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech

O'er-canopies the glade,
Beside soine water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think

(At ease reclin'd in rustic state) How vain the ardour of the crowd, How low, how little are the proud,

How indigent the great!
Still is the toiling hand of Care;

The panting herds repose :
Yet hark, how through the peopled air

The busy murmur glows !
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,

And float amid the liquid noon :
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim

Quick-glancing to the Sun.
To Contemplation's sober eye

Such is the race of man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,

Shall end where they began.
Alike the bosy and the gay
But flutter through life's little day,

In Fortune's varying colours drest : Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance ; Or chilld by Age, their airy dance

They leave in dust to rest. Methinks I hear in accents low

The sportive kind reply?
“ Poor moralist! and what art thou

A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,

No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown:
Thy sun set, thy spring is gone

We frolic while 't is May."

Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,
Isles, that crown th' Ægean deep,
Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,
Or where Mæander's amber waves
In lingering labyrinths creep,
How do your tuneful Echoes languish
Mute, but to the voice of Anguish?
Where each old poetic mountain

Inspiration breath'd around:
Every shade and hallow'd fountain

Murmur'd deep a solemn sound:
Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,

Lèft their Parnassus, for the Latian plains.
Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant-power,

And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,
They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast.

III.
Far from the Sun and summer-gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's darling* laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,
To him the mighty mother did anveil
Hep aweful face : the dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smil'd.
This

pencil take," she said, " whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year:
Thine too these g olden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of Joy;
Of Horrour that, and thrilling fears,
Or

the sacred source of sympathetic tears.
Nor second he,+ that rode sublime
Upon the serapb-wings of Ecstacy,
The secrets of th' abyss to spy.
He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the sapphire-blaze,
Where angels tremble, while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Clos'd his eyes in endless night.
Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car,
Wide o'er the fields of Glory bear
Two coursers of ethereal race, I
With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding

pace.
Hark, his hands the lyre explore !
Bright-ey'd Fancy, hovering o'er,
Scatters from her pictur'd urn
Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
Bat ah! 't is beard no more-
Ob! lyre divine, what daring spirit
Wakes thee now? though he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban eagle bear,
Sailing with supreme

dominion
Through the azure deep of air :
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray
With orient hues, unborrow'd of the Sun:
Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,
Beneath the good how far-but far above the great.

ope

ODE

ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGR. Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,

That crown the wat'ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores

Her Henry's* holy shade ;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th’ expanse below

Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along

His silver-winding way.
Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade,

Ah, fields belov'd in vain,
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,

A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales, that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,

As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,

To breatbe a second spring.

* King Henry the Sixth, founder of the college.

To each his sufferings: all are men,

Condemn'd alike to groan; The tender for another's pain,

The 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,

'T is folly to be wise.

Say, father Thames, for thou hast seen

Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green

The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave

The captive linnet which enthral?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed

Or urge the flying ball ?
While some on earnest business bent

Their murmuring labours ply '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 them wait
The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train, Ah, show them where in ambush stand To seize their prey, the murderous 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 skulks 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-visag'd comfortless Despair,

And Sorrow's piercing dart. Ambition this shall tempt to rise,

Then whirl the wretch from higb,
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 forc'd to flow;
And keen Remorse, with blood defild,
And moody Madness laughing wild

Amid severest woe.
Lo, in the vale of years beneath

A grisly 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 nombs the soul with icy band,

And slow-consuming Age.

ODE ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT, DROWNED

IN A TUB OF GOLD FISHES.
'T was on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dy'd

The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclin'd,

Gaz'd on the lake below.
Her conscious tail her joy declar'd;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,

The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,

She saw; and parr'd applause.
Still had she gaz'd; but ’midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,

The Genii of the stream:
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view

Betray'd a golden gleam.
The hapless nymph with wonder saw :
A whisker first, and then a claw,

With many an ardent wish,
She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize ;
What female heart can gold despise?

What cat 's averse to fish?
Presumptuous maid! with looks intent,
Again she stretch'd, again she bent,

Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smild,)
The slippery verge her feet beguild,

She tumbled beadlong in.
Eight times emerging from the flood
She mew'd to every wal’ry god,

Some speedy aid to send.
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirrd;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard,

A favourite has no friend!
From hence, ye beanties, undeceiv'd,
Know one false step is ne'er retreiv'd,

And be with caution bold.
Not all, that tempts your wandering eyes,
And heedless heart, is lawful prize;

Not all that glisters, gold.

TRANSLATION FROM STATIUS. Third in the labours of the disk came on, With sturdy step and slow, Hippomedon ; Artful and strong he pois’d the well-known weight, 1 By Phlegyas warn’d, and fir'd by Mnestheus' fate, That to avoid and this to emulate. His vigorous arm he try'd before he flung, Brac'd all his nerves and ev'ry sinew strung, Then with a tempest's whirl and wary eye, Parsu'd his cast, and hurl'd the orb on high ; The orb on high, tenacious of its conrse, True to the mighty arm that gave it force,