Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;

To Now rolling down the steep amain,

ΙΟ

Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;

The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar.

I. 2

Oh! Sovereign of the willing soul,

Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, 15 Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares

20

And frantic Passions hear thy soft control. On Thracia's hills the Lord of War

Has curbed the fury of his car,

And dropped his thirsty lance at thy command.
Perching on the sceptred hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feathered king;
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing;
Quenched in dark clouds of slumber lie

The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

I. 3

25 Thee the voice, the dance, obey,

Tempered to thy warbled lay.

O'er Idalia's velvet-green

The rosy-crowned Loves are seen

On Cytherea's day

30 With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures,

Frisking light in frolic measures;

Now pursuing, now retreating,

Now in circling troops they meet;

To brisk notes in cadence beating

Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare;
Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay.
With arms sublime, that float upon the air,

In gliding state she wins her easy way;
O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move

The bloom of young Desires, and purple light of Love.

II.

Man's feeble race what ills await!

Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,

35

40

Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!

45

The fond complaint, my Song, disprove,

And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse?

Night, and all her sickly dews,

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,

50

He gives to range the dreary sky;

Till down the eastern cliffs afar

Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war.

II. 2

In climes beyond the solar road,

Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,

The Muse has broke the twilight gloom

S

55

To cheer the shivering Native's dull abode. And oft, beneath the odorous shade

Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

60 She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,

In loose numbers wildly sweet,

Their feathered-cinctured Chiefs, and dusky Loves. Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,

Glory pursue, and generous Shame,

65 The unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

II. 3

Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,

Isles, that crown the Ægean deep,

Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,

Or where Mæander's amber waves

70 In lingering labyrinths creep,

75

How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute, but to the voice of Anguish !
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breathed around;
Every shade and hallowed fountain

Murmured deep a solemn sound;

Till the sad Nine in Greece's evil hour

Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.
Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant-Power,
80 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. I

Far from the sun and summer-gale,

In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon strayed,

To him the mighty Mother did unveil
Her awful face. The dauntless Child
Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled.
This pencil take (she said) whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year;

Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy!
This can unlock the gates of Joy,

Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.

III. 2

Nor second He, that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,

The secrets of th' Abyss to spy,

He passed 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,

Closed 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,

With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding

pace.

III. 3

Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er

Scatters from her pictured urn

110 Thoughts, that breathe, and words, that burn.
But ah! 'tis heard no more

Oh! Lyre divine, what daring Spirit
Wakes thee now? tho' he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
115 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

120 With Orient hues, unborrowed 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.

5

ODE ON THE PLEASURE ARISING FROM VICISSITUDE

Now the golden Morn aloft

Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
She woos the tardy spring;

Till April starts, and calls around