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,

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

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The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

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!

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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,

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He gives to range the dreary sky;

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, 55 The Muse has broke the twilight gloom,

To cheer the shivering native's dull abode.

And oft, beneath the odorous shade

Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,

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In loose numbers wildly sweet,

Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,

Glory pursue, and generous Shame,

The unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

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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
In lingering labyrinths creep,

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,

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And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.

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When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,

They sought, O Albion, next thy sea-encircled coast.

'This pencil take (she said), whose colours clear

Richly paint the vernal year:

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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.'

Nor second he, that rode sublime

Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
The secrets of the abyss to spy.

He passed the flaming bounds of place and time :

The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze,

Where angels tremble while they gaze,

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100.

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,

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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! 'tis heard no more-

O lyre divine, what daring spirit

Wakes thee now? Though he inherit

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.

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CLXIII

SONNET.

Thomas Gray.

When I behold thee, blameless Williamson,
Wrecked like an infant on a savage shore,
While others round on borrowed pinions soar,

My busy fancy calls thy thread misspun;

Till Faith instructs me the deceit to shun,

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While thus she speaks,-"Those wings that from the store

Of virtue were not lent, howe'er they bore

In this gross air, will melt when near the sun.

The truly' ambitious wait for nature's time,
Content by certain, though by slow, degrees
To mount above the reach of vulgar flight;
Nor is that man confined to this low clime,
Who but the extremest skirts of glory sees,
And hears celestial echoes with delight.'

CLXIV

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Benjamin Stilling fleet.

TO MARY UNWIN.

Mary! I want a lyre with other strings,

Such aid from heaven as some have feigned they drew,
An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new

And undebased by praise of meaner things,
That ere through age or woe shed my wings,
I may record thy worth with honour due,
In verse as musical as thou art true,
And that immortalizes whom it sings:-
But thou hast little need. There is a Book
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright—
There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine;
And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.
William Cowper.

CLXV

TO THE SAME.

The twentieth year is well nigh past,

Since first our sky was overcast ;

Ah! would that this might be the last,
My Mary!

Thy spirits have a fainter flow,

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IO

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I see thee daily weaker grow—

'Twas my distress that brought thee low,

My Mary!

Thy needles, once a shining store,
For my sake restless heretofore,
Now rust disused, and shine no more,
My Mary!

For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil

The same kind office for me still,
Thy sight now seconds not thy will,

My Mary!

But well thou play'dst the housewife's part,
And all thy threads with magic art

ΙΟ

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Have wound themselves about this heart,
My Mary!

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Thy indistinct expressions seem

Like language uttered in a dream ;

Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme,
My Mary!

Thy silver locks, once auburn bright,
Are still more lovely in my sight

Than golden beams of orient light,
My Mary!

For could I view nor them nor thee,
What sight worth seeing could I see?
The sun would rise in vain for me,
My Mary!

Partakers of thy sad decline,

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Thy hands their little force resign ;
Yet gently pressed, press gently mine,
My Mary!

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Such feebleness of limbs thou prov'st,
That now at every step thou mov'st
Upheld by two; yet still thou lov'st,
My Mary!

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