I, too, o'er fancy's milky-way would rove, When by the huddling brooklet's secret brim When by the poets' sacred urns I kneel, And rapture springs exultant to my reed, The pæan dies, and sadder measures steal, And grief and Montague demand the meed. * THOU mongrel, who dost show thy teeth, and yelp, I, a Laconian dog, can bite again: Yes, I can make the Daunian tiger flee, [thee. Much more a bragging, foul-mouth'd whelp like Beware Lycambes', or Bupalus' fate— I do not languidly my wrongs bemoan; I do not whine and cant the time away, [bone. But, with revengeful gripe, I bite him to the ODE. TO THE MORNING STAR. MANY invoke pale Hesper's pensive sway, When rest supine leans o'er the pillowing clouds, And the last tinklings come From the safe folded flock. But me, bright harbinger of coming day, Let the poor silken sons of slothful pride Press now their downy couch in languid ease, While visions of dismay Flit o'er their troubled brain. Be mine to view, awake to nature's charms, Thy paly flame evanish from the sky, As gradual day usurps The welkin's glowing bounds. Mine, to snuff up the pure ambrozial breeze, And thou, Hygeia, shalt my steps attend, As on my restless bed Slow past the tedious night; And slowly, by the taper's sickly gleam, Drew my dull curtain; and with anxious eye Strove through the veil of night To mark the tardy morn. Thou, Health, shalt bless me in my early walk, Dance in my lighten'd veins. And as I mark the Cotter from his shed Thy mild, thy placid sway. Star of the morning! these, thy joys, I'll share, As rove my pilgrim feet the sylvan haunts; While to thy blushing shrine Due orisons shall rise. THE HERMIT OF THE PACIFIC; OR, THE HORRORS OF UTTER SOLitude. OH! who can paint the unspeakable dismay Him, who by some Carvaggian waterfall A shipwreck'd man hath scoop'd his desert cave, Where Desolation, in her giant pall, Sits frowning on the ever-falling wave, That wooes the wretch to dig, by her loud shore, his grave. Thou youthful pilgrim, whose untoward feet Too early hath been torn in life's rough way, Thou, who endow'd with Fancy's holiest heat, Seest dark Misfortune cloud thy morning ray: Though doom'd in penury to pine thy day, O seek not, seek not in the glooms to shroud Of waste, or wilderness-a cast-awayWhere noise intrudes not, save when in the cloud, Riding sublime, the storm roars fearfully, and loud. Though man to man be as the ocean shark, Reckless, and unrelentingly severe; [dark, Though friendship's cloak must veil the purpose While the red poinard glimmers in the rear, Yet, is society most passing dear. [refined Though mix'd with clouds, its sunshine gleams Will through the glooms most pleasantly appear, And soothe thee, when thy melancholy mind Must ask for comfort else of the loud pitiless wind. Yet is it distant from the Muse's theme In some low village's remote recess, Where thou may'st learn-O enviable skill,— To heal the sick, and soothe the comfortless, To give, and to receive-be blessed, and to bless. God unto men hath different powers assign'dThere be, who love the city's dull turmoil; There be, who, proud of an ambitious mind, From lonely Quiet's hermit-walks recoil: Leave thou these insects to their grov'lling toilThou, whom retired leisure best can please; For thee, the hazle copse's verdant aisle, And summer bower, befitting studious ease, Prepare a keener bliss than they shall ever seize. Lo, the grey morning climbs the eastern tower, The dew-drop glistening in her op'ning eye; Now on the upland lawn salute the hour That wakes the warbling woods to melody; There sauntering on the stile, embower'd high With fragrant hawthorn, and the gadding brier, Pore on thy book, or cast by fits thine eye Where far below, hill, dale, and village spire, And brook, and mead, and wood, far from the sight retire. But what are these, forsaken and forlorn? |