In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice

The grief-full Muse address'd her infant tongue; The maids and matrons, on her awful voice,

Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.

Yet he, the bard * who first invok'd thy name,

Disdain'd in Marathon its power to feel : For not alone he nurs'd the poet's flame,

But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel.

Where'er from time thou court'st relief,
ODE, TO A LADY,

The Muse shall still, with social grief,

Her gentlest promise keep :
ON THE DEATH OF COL. CHARLES ROSS, IN THE E'en humble Harting's collag'd vale
ACTION AT FONTENOY.

Shall learn the sad repeated tale,

And bid her shepherds weep.
Written May, 1745.
Wuile, lost to all his former mirth,
Britannia's genius bends to earth,

ODE TO EVENING.
And mourns the fatal day:
While staind with blood he strives to tear

IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
Unseemly from his sea-green hair

May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, The wreaths of cheerful May:

Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;
The thoughts which musing Pity pays,
And fond Remembrance loves to raise,

O nymph reserv’d, while now the bright-hair'd Sun
Your faithful hours attend :

Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, Still Fancy, to herself unkind,

With brede ethereal wove,
Awakes to grief the soften'd mind,

O'erhang his wavy bed :
And points the bleeding friend.

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd bat, By rapid Scheld's descending wave

With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, His country's vows shall bless the grave,

Or where the beetle winds
Where'er the youth is laid :

His small but sullen horn,
That sacred spot the village hind
With every sweetest turf shall bind,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
And Peace protect the shade.

Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum.

Now teach me, maid compos’d,
O'er him, whose doom thy virtues grieve,

To breathe some soften'd strain,
Aerial forms shall sit at eve,
And bend the pensive head;

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, And, fall'n to save his injur'd land,

May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
Imperial Honor's awful hand

As, musing slow, I hail
Shall point his lonely bed!

Thy genial lov'd return!
The warlike dead of every age,

For when thy folding-star arising shows
Who fill the fair recording page,

His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
Shall leave their sainted rest :

The fragrant hours, and elves
And, half-reclining on his spear,

Who slept in buds the day,
Each wondering chief by turns appear
To hail the blooming guest.

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with

sedge, Old Edward's sons, unknown to yield,

And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still,
Shall crowd from Cressy's laureld field,

The pensive pleasures sweet
And gaze with fix'd delight:

Prepare thy shadowy car.
Again for Britain's wrongs they feel,

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Again they snatch the gleamy steel,
And wish th' avenging fight.

Or find some ruin ʼmidst its dreary dells,

Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.
But, lo! where, sunk in deep despair,
Her garments torn, her bosom bare,

Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Impatient Freedom lies!

Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
Her matted tresses madly spread,

That from the mountain's side
To every sod which wraps the dead,

Views wild and swelling floods,
She turns her joyless eyes.

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires,
Ne'er shall she leave that lowly ground, And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Till notes of triumph bursting round

Thy dewy fingers draw
Proclaim her reign restor'd:

The gradual dusky veil.
Till William seek the sad retreat,
And, bleeding at her sacred feet,

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont
Present the sated sword.

And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!

While Summer loves to sport
If, weak to soothe so soft an heart,

Beneath thy lingering light:
These pictur'd glories nought impart,
To dry thy constant tear :

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
If yet, in Sorrow's distant eye,

Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Expos'd and pale thou see'st him lie,

Affrights thy shrinking train,
Wild war insulting near :

And rudely rends thy robes :

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,

Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy favorite name!

Or dwell in willow'd meads more near,
With those to whom the stork" is dear :
Those whom the rod of Alva bruis'd,

Whose crown a British queen refus'd !
The magic works, thou feel'st the strains,
One holior name alone remains;
The perfect spell shall then avail,
Hail, nymph, ador'd by Britain, hail !

ODE TO LIBEPTY.

STROPHT

ANTISTROPHE.
Who shall awake the Spirtan fife,
And call in solemn so'nds to life,

Beyond the measure vast of thought,
The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,

The works, the wizard Time has wrought! Like vernal hyacirths in sullen hue,

The Gaul, 'tis held of antique story, At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse strand,t

Applauding F eodom lov'd of old to view ? No sea between, nor cliff sublime and hoary, What new Alers, fancy-blest,

He pass'd with unwet feet through all our land. Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest,

To the blown Baltic then, they say, At Wisden's shrine awhile its flame concealing,

The wild waves found another way, (What place so fit to seal a deed renown'd ?) Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding; Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing,

Till all the banded west at once 'gan rise, It 'eap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted A wide wild storm e'en Nature's self confounding, wound !

Withering her giant sons with strange uncouth O goddess, in that feeling hour,

surprise. When most its sounds would court thy ears,

This pillar'd earth so firm and wide, Let not my shell's misguided power

By winds and inward labors torn, E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears.

In thunders dread was push'd aside, No, Freedom, no, I will not tell,

And down the shouldering billows borne How Rome, before thy face,

And see, like gems, her laughing train, With heaviest sound, a giant-statue, fell,

The little isles on every side, Push'd by a wild and artless race,

Monat once hid from those who search the main, From off its wide ambitious base,

Where thousand elfin shapes abide,
When Time his northern sons of spoil awoke, And Wight, who checks the westering tide,

And all the blended work of strength and grace For thee consenting Heaven has each bestow'd,
With many a rude repeated stroke,

A fair attendant on her sovereign pride : And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments

To thee this blest divorce she ow'd, broke.

For thou hast made her vales thy lov'd, thy last abode!

EPODE.

SECOND ENODE.

Then too, 'tis said, an hoary pile,
'Midst the green navel of our isle,

Yet, e'en where'er the least appear'd,
Th' admiring world thy hand rever'd;
Still, midst the scatter'd states around,
Some remnants of her strength were found;
They saw, by what escap'd the storm,
How wondrous rose her perfect form;
How in the great, the labor'd whole,
Each mighty master pour'd his soul ;
For sunny Florence, seat of Art,
Beneath her vines preserv'd a part,
Till they, whom Science lov’d to name,
(0, who could fear it !) quench'd her flame.
And, lo, an humbler relic laid
In jealous Pisa's olive shade!
See small Marino joins the theme,
Though least, not last in thy esteem;
Strike, louder strike th' ennobling strings
To those, whose merchants' sons were kings;
To him, who, deck'd with pearly pride,
In Adria weds his green-hair'd bride:
Hail, port of glory, wealth, and pleasure,
Ne'er let me change this Lydian measure :
Nor e'er her former pride relate
To sad Liguria's bleeding state.
Ah, no! more pleas'd thy haunts I seek,
On wild Helvetia's mountains bleak:
(Where, when the favord of thy choice,
The daring archer heard thy voice;
Forth from his eyrie rous'd in dread,
The ravening eagle northward fled.)

* The Dutch, amongst whom there are very severe pen. alties for those who are convicted of killing this bird. They are kept tame in almost all their towns, and par. ticularly at the Hague, of the arms of which they make a part. The common people of Holland are said to entertain a superstitious sentiment, that if the whole species of them should become extinct, they should lose their liberties.

| This tradition is mentioned by several of our old his. torians. Some naturalists, too, have endeavored to support the probability of the fact, by arguments drawn from the correspondent disposition of the two opposite coasts. I do not remember that any poetical use has been hitherto made of it.

1 There is a tradition in the Isle of Man, that a mermaid, becoming enamoured of a young man of extraordi. nary beauty, took an opportunity of meeting him one day as he walked on the shore, and opened her passion to him, but was received with a coldness, occasioned by his horror and surprise at her appearance. This, how. ever, was so misconstrued by the sea-lady, that, in re. venge for his treatment of her, she punished the whole island, by covering it with a mist, so that all who at. tempted to carry on any commerce with it, either never arrived at it, but wandered up and down the sea, or were on a sudden wrecked upon its cliffs.

Thy shrine in some religious wood,

From the supporting myrtles round O soul-enforcing goddess, stood !

They snatch'd her instruments of sound, There oft the painted native's feet

And, as they oft had heard apart
Were wont thy form celestial meet:

Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Though now with hopeless toil we trace Each, for madness rul'd the hour,
Time's backward rolls, to find its place; Would prove his own expressive power.
Whether the fiery-tressed Dane,
Or Roman's self, o'erturn'd the fane,

First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Or in what heaven-left age it fell,

Amid the chords bewilder'd laid, 'Twere hard for modern song to tell.

And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
Yet still, if truth those beams infuse,

E'en at the sound himself had made.
Which guide at once, and charm the Muse,
Beyond yon braided clouds that lie,

Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire,
Paving the light embroider'd sky:

In lightnings own'd his secret stings, Amidst the bright pavilion'd plains,

In one rude clash he struck the lyre, The beauteous model still remains.

And swept with hurried hand the strings There happier than in islands blest, Or bowers by Spring or Hebe drest,

With woful measures wan DespairThe chiefs who fill our Albion's story,

Low sullen sounds his grief beguild, In warlike weeds, retir'd in glory,

A solemn, strange, and mingled air, Hear their consorted Druids sing

'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild. Their triumphs to th' immortal string.

But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair, How may the poet now unfold,

What was thy delighted measure ? What never tongue or numbers told ?

Still it whisper'd promis'd pleasure, How learn delighted, and amaz'd,

And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail ! What hands unknown that fabric rais'd ?

Still would her touch the strain prolong, E'en now, before his favor'd eyes,

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, In Gothic pride it seems to rise!

She callid on Echo still through all the song; Yet Grecia's graceful orders join,

And where her sweetest theme she chose, Majestic, through the mix'd design;

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, The secret builder knew to choose,

And Hope enchanted smild, and wav'd her golden Each sphere-found gem of richest hues :

hair. Whate'er Heaven's purer mould contains, When nearer suns emblaze its veins;

And longer had she sung—but, with a frown, There on the walls the patriot's sight

Revenge impatient rose,

He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down. May ever hang with fresh delight,

And, with a withering look, And, 'grav'd with some prophetic rage,

The war-denouncing trumpet took, Read Albion's fame through every age.

And blew a blast so loud and dread, Ye forms divine, ye laureate band,

Were ne'er prophetic sound so full of woe. That near her inmost altar stand! Now soothe her, to her blissful train

And ever and anon he beat Blithe Concord's social form to gain :

The doubling drum with furious heat; Concord, whose myrtle wand can steep

And though sometimes, each dreary pause between, E'en Anger's blood-shot eyes in sleep:

Dejected Pity at his side Before whose breathing bosom's balm,

Her soul-subduing voice applied, Rage drops his steel, and storms grow calm ;. While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting

Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien, Her let our sires and matrons hoar

from his head. Welcome to Britain's ravag'd shore, Our youths, enamour'd of the fair,

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd, Play with the tangles of her hair,

Sad proof of thy distressful state, Till, in one loud applauding sound,

Of differing themes the veering song was mix’d, The nations shout to her around,

And now it courted Love, now raving callid on "O, how supremely art thou blest,

Hate.
Thou, lady, thou shalt rule the West!" With eyes up-rais'd, as one inspir’d,

Pale Melancholy sat retir'd,
And from her wild sequester'd seat,

In notes by distance made more sweet,
THE PASSIONS.

Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
AN ODE FOR MUSIC.

And dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels join'd the sound; When Music, heavenly maid, was young, Through glades and glooms the mingled measurestole While yet in early Greece she sung,

Or o'er some haunted streams with fond delay, The Passions oft, to hear her shell,

Round an holy calm diffusing, Throng'd around her magic cell,

Love of peace, and lonely musing, Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,

In hollow murmurs died away. Possest beyond the Muse's painting ;

But, O, how alter'd was its sprightlier tone! By turns they felt the glowing mind

When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, Disturb’d, delighted, rais'd, refind;

Her bow across her shoulder flung, Till once, 'tis said, when all were fir'd,

Her buskins gemm’d with morning dew, Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspir'd,

Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung.

ON

The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known; The red-breast oft at evening hours The oak-crown'd sisters, and their chasle-ey'd Shall kindly lend his little aid, queen,

With hoary moss, and gather'd flowers, Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen,

To deck the ground where thou art laid. Peeping frorn forth their alleys green; Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

When howling winds, and beating rain, And Sport leapt up, and seiz'd his beechen spear. In tempests shake thy sylvan cell; Last came Joy's ecstatic trial,

Or 'midst the chase on every plain, He, with viny crown advancing,

The tender thought on thee shall dwell. First to the lively pipe his hand addrest, But soon he saw the brisk-awakening viol,

Each lonely scene shall thee restore,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he lov'd the best. For thee the tear be duly shed ;

They would have thought, who heard the strain, Beloy'd, till life can charm no more ;
They saw in Tempé's vale her native maids,

And mourn'd, till Pity's self be dead.
Amidst the festal-sounding shades,
To some unwearied minstrel dancing,

While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings,
Love fram’d with Mirth a gay fantastic round,

AN ODE
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,

And he, amidst his frolic play,
As if he would the charming air repay,

THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND;

CONSIDERED AS O Music, sphere-descended maid,

THE SUBJECT OF POETRY.
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid,

INSCRIBED TO MR. JOHN HOME.
Why, goddess, why to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside ?

HOME, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads As in that lov'd Athenian bower,

long You learn'd an all-commanding power,

Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay, Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear'd,

Mid those soft friends, whose hearts some future day Can well recall what then it heard.

Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.*
Where is thy native simple heart,

Go, not unmindful of that cordial youtht
Devote to virtue, fancy, art?

Whom, long endear'd, thou leav'st by Lavant's sida;
Arise, as in that elder time,

Together let us wish him lasting truth
Warm, energic, chaste, sublime !

And joy untainted with his destin'd bride.
Thy wonders, in that godlike age,

Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast
Fill thy recording sister's page-

My short-liv'd bliss, forget my social name; "Tis said, and I believe the tale,

But think, far off, how, on the Southern coast,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,

I met thy friendship with an equal flame!
Had more of strength, diviner rage,

Fresh to that soil thou turn'st, where every vale
Than all which charms this laggard age, Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand :
E'en all at once together found

To thee thy copious subjects ne'er shall fail ;
Cæcilia's mingled world of sound-

Thou need’st but take thy pencil to thy hand,
O, bid our vain endeavors cease,

And paint what all believe, who own thy genial land.
Revive the just designs of Greece,
Return in all thy simple state !

There must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill;
Confirm the tales her sons relate!

'Tis Fancy's land to which thou sett'st thy feet;

Where still, 'lis said, the fairy people meet, Beneath each birken shade, on mead or hill. There each trim lass, that skims the milky store

To the swart tribes, their creamy bowls allots; DIRGE IN CYMBELINE,

By night they sip it round the cottage-door,

While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. SUNG BY GUIDERUS AND ARVIRAGUS OVER FIDELE, There, every herd, by sad experience, knows

How, wing'd with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD.

When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes,
To fair Fidele's grassy tomb

Or, stretch'd on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie.
Soft maids and village hinds shall bring Such airy beings awe th' untutor'd swain :
Each opening sweet, of earliest bloom,

Nor thou, though learn'd, his homelier thoughts
And rifle all the breathing Spring.

neglect;

Let thy sweet Muse the rural faith sustain;
No wailing ghost shall dare appear

These are the themes of simple, sure effect,
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove, That add new conquests to her boundless reign,
But shepherd lads assemble here,

And fill with double force her heart-commanding
And melting virgins own their love.

strain.
No wither'd witch shall here be seen,
No goblins lead their nightly crew;

* How truly did Collins predict Home's tragic powers 1 The female fays shall haunt the green,

† A gentleman of the name of Barrow, whe introduced And dress thy grave with pearly dew. Home to Collins.