From Alfred's parent reign To Nassau, great deliverer, wise and bold; Your wounds, your painful marches, wintry seas, The day by cowardice and falsehood vex'd, The indignant heart disdaining the reward III. 3. Which envy hardly grants. But, O renown, O praise from judging heaven and virtuous men, "Lo, these," he saith, "lo, these are they Who to the laws of mine eternal sway From violence and fear asserted human kind.” IV. 1. Thus honour'd while the train Of legislators in his presence dwell; If I may aught foretell, The statesman shall the second palm obtain. Let vulgar bards, with undiscerning praise, But wisest Heaven what deeds may chiefly move To favour and to love? What, save wide blessings, or averted harms? IV. 2. Nor to the embattled field Shall these achievements of the peaceful gown, The green immortal crown Of valour, or the songs of conquest, yield. While bare of crest he hew'd his fatal way To heavier dangers did his breast oppose IV. 3. But what is man at enmity with truth? Let Tyne's and Humber's trampled swains, How impious guile made wisdom base; fell. V. 1. Thence never hath the Muse Around his tomb Pierian roses flung: Nor shall one poet's tongue His name for music's pleasing labour choose. Hath deck'd some favour'd breast above the throng, That man with grievous wrong Affronts and wounds his genius, if he bends To guilt's ignoble ends The functions of his ill-submitting mind. V. 2. For worthy of the wise Nothing can seem but virtue; nor earth yield Save where impartial Freedom gives the prize. Inroll'd the next to William. There shall Time To every wondering clime Point out that Somers, who from faction's crowd, The slanderous and the loud, Could fair assent and modest reverence claim. V. 3. Nor aught did laws or social arts acquire, And rightly shall the Muse's care Whose mind's enamour'd aim Sublime as ever sage or poet saw, Yet still to life's rude scene the proud ideas tame. VI. 1. Let none profane be near! The Muse was never foreign to his breast: On power's grave seat confess'd, Still to her voice he bent a lover's ear. And if the blessed know Their ancient cares, even now the unfading groves, With Spenser, hear the enchanted echoes round VI. 2. He knew, the patriot knew, That letters and the Muse's powerful art And brighten every form of just and true. To civil wisdom, than corruption's lure They too from envy's pale malignant light Cloth'd in the fairest colours of the day. VI. 3. O Townshend, thus may Time, the judge severe, Instruct my happy tongue of thee to tell: And when I speak of one to Freedom dear For planning wisely and for acting well, Of one whom Glory loves to own, Then, for the guerdon of my lay, "This man with faithful friendship," will I say, "From youth to honour'd age my arts and me hath view'd." ODE V. ON LOVE OF PRAISE. I. Or all the springs within the mind II. Nor any partial, private end Such reverence to the public bears; Nor any passion, virtue's friend, So like to virtue's self appears. III. For who in glory can delight, Without delight in glorious deeds? What man a charming voice can slight, Who courts the echo that succeeds? IV. But not the echo on the voice More, than on virtue praise, depends; To which, of course, its real price V. If praise then with religious awe From the sole perfect judge be sought, A nobler aim, a purer law, Nor priest, nor bard, nor sage hath taught. |