I. 3.

*Thee the voice, the dance, obey, 4

Temper'd to thy warbled lay.

O'er Idalia's velvet-green

The rosy-crowned Loves are seen

On Cytherea's day 3

With antic sport, and blue-eyed Pleasures, 4 '1⁄2

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.

4

Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare:
Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay. e
With arms sublime, that float upon the air,
In gliding state she wins her easy way: C
O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move, L
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

II. 1.

+ Man's feeble race what Ills await,

Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,

*Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body.

To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to Mankind by the same Providence that sends the Day by its chearful presence to dispel the gloom and terrors of the Night.

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 giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse?

Night, and all her sickly dews,

Her Spectres wan, and Birds of boding cry,

He gives to range the dreary sky:

Till down the eastern cliffs afar

Hyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring shafts of war.

II. 2.

* In climes beyond the solar road,

Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,

The Muse has broke the twilight-gloom

To chear the shivering Native's dull abode.

And oft, beneath the od'rous shade

Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

She deigns to hear the

savage

In loose numbers wildly sweet

Youth repeat

Their feather-cinctur'd Chiefs, and dusky Loves.
Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,

Extensive influence of poetic Genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations: its connection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it.-[See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welch Fragments; the Lapland and American Songs.]

Glory pursue, and generous Shame,

Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

II. 3.

* Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,

Isles, that crown th' Ægean deep,

Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,

Or where Mæander's amber waves

In lingering Lab'rinths creep,

How do your tuneful Echoes languish,
Mute, but to the voice of Anguish!
Where each old poetic Mountain
Inspiration breath'd around;

Ev'ry shade and hallow'd Fountain
Murmur'd 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,
And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,

They sought, oh, Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast.

Progress of Poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there; Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them: but this School expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since.

III. 1.

Far from the sun and summer-gale,

In thy green lap was Nature's * Darling laid,
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 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 Horror that, and thrilling Fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.

III. ..

Nor second Het, that rode sublime 1

Upon the seraph-wings of Extasy,

The secrets of th' Abyss to spy.

He pass'd the flaming bounds of Place and Time:

The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze,

Where Angels tremble, while they gaze,

He saw; but blasted with excess of light,

Clos'd 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,

With necks in thunder cloath'd, and long-resounding

pace.

III. 3.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!

Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er

Scatters from her pictur'd urn

Thoughts, that breathe, and words, that burn.

*But ah! 'tis heard no more-----

Oh! Lyre divine, what daring Spirit

Wakes thee now? tho' he inherit

Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,

+That the Theban Eagle bear Sailing with supreme dominion

Thro' the azure deep of air:

Yet oft before his infant eyes would run

Such forms, as glitter in the Muse's ray

* We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind, than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's day: for Cowley (who had his merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason, indeed, of late days, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand in some of his Choruses,--above all in the last of Caractacus;

"Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread?" &c.

† Pindar,