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The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,

To him are opening paradise.

4. ODE TO ADVERSITY.

Daughter of Jove, relentless pow'r,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain;
And purple tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.
When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, design'd,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore :

What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

And from her own she learnt to melt at others' woe.

Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,

And leave us leisure to be good.

Light they disperse; and with them go
The summer-friend, the flatt'ring foe;

By vain Prosperity receiv'd,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believ'd.

Wisdom in sable garb array'd,

Immers'd in rapt'rous thought profound,

And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground,

Still on thy solemn steps attend;

Warm Charity, the general friend,

With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head,
Dread goddess, lay thy chast'ning hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,
Nor circled with the vengeful band
(As by the impious thou art seen)

With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning mien,
With screaming Horror's fun'ral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty
Thy form benign, O goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart ;
Thy philosophic train be there
To soften, not to wound, my heart.
The gen'rous spark extinct revive;
Teach me to love, and to forgive;
Exact my own defects to scan;

What others are to feel, and know myself a man.

CLXXXVI. RICHARD WEST, 1716-1742.

HEALTH.

Health is at best a vain precarious thing,
And fair-faced youth is ever on the wing;
'Tis like the stream, beside whose watery bed
Some blooming plant exalts his flowery head;
Nursed by the wave the spreading branches rise,
Shade all the ground and flourish to the skies;
The waves the while beneath in secret flow,
And undermine the hollow bank below;
Wide and more wide the waters urge their way,
Bare all the roots and on their fibres prey.
Too late the plant bewails his foolish pride,
And sinks untimely in the whelming tide.

CLXXXVII. DAVID GARRICK, 1716–1770. 1. PROLOGUES.

Prologues precede the piece, in mournful verse,
As undertakers walk before a hearse;

Whose doleful march may strike the hardened mind,
And wake its feelings-for the dead behind.

2. FELLOW-FEELING.

A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.

CLXXXVIII. RICHARD OWEN CAMBRIDGE,

1717-1802.

INVITATION-CARDS.

From solitude they give the cheerful call
To the choice supper or the sprightly ball;
Speed the soft summons of the gay and fair,
From distant Bloomsbury to Grosvenor's square;
And bring the colonel to the tender hour,
From the parade, the senate, or the Tower.

Ye records, patents of our worth and pride!
Our daily lesson, and our nightly guide!
Where'er ye stand, disposed in proud array,
The vapours vanish, and the heart is gay;
But when no cards the chimney-glass adorn,
The dismal void with heart-felt shame we mourn;
Conscious neglect inspires a sullen gloom,
And brooding sadness fills the slighted room.

CLXXXIX. COLLINS, 1720-1756.
1. THE PASSIONS.

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung.
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possess'd beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, rais'd, refined :
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspir'd,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for madness ruled the hour)
Would prove his own expressive power.
First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewilder'd laid,
And back recoil'd, he knew not why
E'en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings,
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.
With woful measures wan Despair,

Low, sullen sounds his grief beguil';
A solemn, strange, and mingled air,
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure ?
Still it whisper'd promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong,

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She call'd on Echo still through all the song;
And where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
And Hope enchanted smil'd and wav'd her golden hair.
And longer had she sung-but with a frown,
Revenge impatient rose:

He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down,
And with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe;

4

And ever and anon he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat :

And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,

Dejected Pity at his side

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien;

While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from

his head.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd,

Sad proof of thy distressful state!

Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd;

And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate. With eyes uprais'd, as one inspir'd,

Pale Melancholy sat retir'd,

And from her wild sequester'd seat,

In notes by distance made more sweet,

Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
And dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;

Through glades and glooms the mingled measures stole,

Or o'er some haunted stream with fond delay,
Round a holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace and lonely musing,

In hollow murmurs died away.

But, O how alter'd was its sprightlier tone!
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulder flung,

Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew,

Blew an aspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,
The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known;

The oak-crown'd sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen,
Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen

Peeping from forth their alleys green:

Brown Exercise rejoic'd to hear,

And Sport leap'd up, and seized his beechen
Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:

He, with viny crown advancing,

spear.

First to the lively pipe his hand address'd,
But soon he saw the brisk-awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he lov'd the best :
They would have thought, who heard the strain,
They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids,
Amidst the festal sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing,
While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings,
Love fram'd with mirth a gay fantastic round;
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
And he, amidst his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.
O Music, sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid!
Why, goddess, why to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As, in that lov'd Athenian bow'r,
You learn'd an all-commanding pow'r ;

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