No further seek his merits to disclose,. Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God. THE PROGRESS OF POESY. A PINDARIC ODE. Φωνάνα συνελοῖσιν· ἐε Δὲ τὸ πᾶν ἑρμηνέων χαρίζει. I. Pindar. Olym. ii. AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings, A thousand rills their mazy progress take; 4 Now the rich stream of music winds along, Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign: Headlong, impetuous, see it pour : The rocks, and nodding groves, rebellow to the roar. Oh! sovereign of the willing soul, Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, Enchanting shell! the sullen cares, And frantic passions, hear thy soft control: On Thracia's hills the lord of war Has curb'd the fury of his car, And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command: Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie The terrour of his beak, and lightning of his eyc. Thee the voice, the dance, obey, Temper'd to thy warbled lay, O'er Idalia's velvet-green The rosy-crowned Loves are seen, On Cytherea's day, With antic sports and blue-ey'd pleasures, Frisking light in frolic measures; In gliding state she wins her easy way : O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move 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, And justify the laws of Jove. 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, 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, Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves. Glory pursue, and generous Shame, Th' unconquerable mind, and Freedom's holy flame. Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep, Isles, that crown th' Ægean deep, Or where Mæander's amber waves In lingering labyrinths creep, How do your tuneful Echoes languish Where each old poetic mountain And coward Vice, that revels in her chains. They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast. III. Far from the Sun and summer-gale, To him the mighty mother did unveil Her 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 golden keys, immortal boy! This can unlock the gates of Joy; Of Horrour that, and thrilling fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears. Nor second he †, that rode sublime He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time: • Shakspeare. † Milton. The living throne, the sapphire-blaze, He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car, Two coursers of ethereal race*, With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding pace. Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Bright-ey'd Fancy, hovering o'er, Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. But ah! 't is heard no more Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit Wakes thee now? though he inherit Yet oft before his infant eyes would run Beneath the good how far-but far above the great. * Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes. |