And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old In the midst a form divine! Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line ; What strings symphonious tremble in the air! "The verse adorn again Fierce War, and faithful Love, And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction dress'd. move Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings lessen on my ear, That lost in long futurity expire. Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Raised by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me with joy I see The different doom our Fates assign. Be thine Despair, and sceptred Care: To triumph, and to die, are mine." He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night. THE PROGRESS OF POESY. A PINDARIC ODE. I. AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. A thousand rills their mazy progress take: * Shakspeare. + Milton. The succession of poets after Milton's time. The laughing flowers that round them blow, Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign: The rocks, and nodding groves, re-bellow to the roar. O sovereign of the willing soul, And frantic passions, hear thy soft control: And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command: Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king The rosy-crowned Loves are seen, With antic Sport and blue-eyed Pleasures, Now pursuing, now retreating, Now in circling troops they meet: eye. 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 Desire, and purple light of Love. II. Man's feeble race what ills await, Labour and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! The fond complaint, my song, disprove, Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war. In climes beyond the solar road, Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, To cheer the shivering native's dull abode. Of Chili's boundless forests laid, She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves. Glory pursue, and generous Shame, The unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame. 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 Left their Parnassus, for the Latian plains. They sought, O Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast. III. Far from the Sun and summer-gale, * Shakspeare. What time, where lucid Avon stray'd, To him the mighty mother did unveil Her awful face: the dauntless child Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smiled. "This pencil take," she said, "whose colours clear Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy! Of horror that, and thrilling fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears." Nor second he,* that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy; He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time; 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,t With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace. Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er, Scatters from her pictured urn Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. But ah! 't is heard no more O! lyre divine, what daring spirit Wakes thee now? Though he inherit Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, That the Theban eagle bare, Yet oft before his infant eyes would run Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, Beneath the good how far-but far above the great. * Milton. + Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes. SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. THE WINTER EVENING. HARK! 't is the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge, With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks, And, having dropp'd the' expected bag, pass on. Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, ? His horse and him, unconscious of them all. |