Of things, the great Artificer portrays His own immense idea. Various names These among mortals bear, as various signs They use, and by peculiar organs speak
To human sense. There are who by the flight Of air through tubes with moving stops distinct, Or by extended chords in measure taught To vibrate, can assemble powerful sounds Expressing every temper of the mind
From every cause, and charming all the soul With passion void of care. Others meantime The rugged mass of metal, wood, or stone, Patiently taming; or with easier hand
Describing lines, and with more ample scope Uniting colours, can to general sight Produce those permanent and perfect forms, Those characters of heroes and of gods, Which from the crude materials of the world, Their own high minds created. But the chief Are poets; eloquent men, who dwell on earth To clothe whate'er the soul admires or loves With language and with numbers. Hence to these A field is open'd wide as Nature's sphere; Nay, wider: various as the sudden acts Of human wit, and vast as the demands
Of human will. The bard nor length nor depth, Nor place nor form controls. To eyes, to ears, To every organ of the copious mind,
He offereth all its treasures. Him the hours, The seasons him obey; and changeful Time
PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.
Sees him at will keep measure with his flight, At will outstrip it. To enhance his toil, He summoneth from the uttermost extent Of things which God hath taught him, every form Auxiliar, every power; and all beside Excludes imperious. His prevailing hand Gives to corporeal essence life and sense, And every stately function of the soul. The soul itself to him obsequious lies, Like matter's passive heap; and as he wills To reason and affection he assigns Their just alliances, their just degrees: Whence his peculiar honours; whence the race Of men who people his delightful world, Men genuine and according to themselves, Transcend as far the uncertain sons of earth, As earth itself to his delightful world, The palm of spotless Beauty doth resign.
ODES ON SEVERAL SUBJECTS.
ON zonder verdant hillock laid,
Where oaks and elms, a friendly shade,
O'erlook the falling stream,
O master of the Latin lyre, Awhile with thee will I retire
From summer's noontide beam.
And lo, within my lonely bower,
The industrious bee from many a flower
Collects her balmy dews:
"For me," she sings, "the gems are born,
For me their silken robe adorn,
Their fragant breath diffuse."
Sweet murmurer! may no rude storm
This hospitable scene deform,
Nor check thy gladsome toils;
may the buds unsullied spring, Still showers and sunshine court thy wing
To these ambrosial spoils.
Nor shall my Muse hereafter fail Her fellow-labourer thee to hail; And lucky be the strains! For long ago did Nature frame Your seasons and your arts the same, Your pleasures and your pains.
Like thee, in lowly, sylvan scenes, On river banks and flowery greens, My Muse delighted plays; Nor through the desert of the air, Though swans or eagles triumph there, With fond ambition strays.
Nor where the boding raven chaunts, Nor near the owl's unhallow'd haunts, Will she her cares employ; But flies from ruins and from tombs, From Superstition's horrid glooms, To daylight and to joy.
Nor will she tempt the barren waste; Nor deigns the lurking strength to taste
Of any noxious thing;
But leaves with scorn to Envy's use The insipid nightshade's baneful juice, The nettle's sordid sting.
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