While round them chaunt the croaking choir, And haply soothe some lover's prudent woe, Or prompt some restive bard and modulate his lyre.

I. 3.

Farewell, ye nymphs, whom sober care of gain
Snatch'd in your cradles from the god of Love:
She render'd all his boasted arrows vain ;
And all his gifts did he in spite remove.
Ye too, the slow-ey'd fathers of the land,
With whom dominion steals from hand to hand,
Unown'd, undignified by public choice,

I go where Liberty to all is known,
And tells a monarch on his throne,
He reigns not but by her preserving voice.

II. 1.

my lov'd England, when with thee Shall I sit down, to part no more? Far from this pale, discolour'd sea, That sleeps upon the reedy shore: When shall I plough thy azure tide? When on thy hills the flocks admire, Like mountain snows; till down their side I trace the village and the sacred spire, While bowers and copses green the golden slope divide?

II. 2.

Ye nymphs who guard the pathless grove,

Ye blue-ey'd sisters of the streams,

With whom I wont at morn to rove,

With whom at noon I talk'd in dreams;

BOOK I.

O! take me to your haunts again,
The rocky spring, the greenwood glade;
To guide my lonely footsteps deign,

To prompt my slumbers in the murmuring shade, And soothe my vacant ear with many an airy strain.

II. 3.

And thou, my faithful harp, no longer mourn
Thy drooping master's inauspicious hand:
Now brighter skies and fresher gales return,
Now fairer maids thy melody demand.
Daughters of Albion, listen to my lyre!
0 Phoebus, guardian of the Aonian choir,
Why sounds not mine harmonious as thy own,
When all the virgin deities above

With Venus and with Juno move

In concert round the Olympian father's throne?

III. 1.

Thee too, protectress of my lays,
Elate with whose majestic call
Above degenerate Latium's praise,
Above the slavish boast of Gaul,
I dare from impious thrones reclaim,
And wanton sloth's ignoble charms,

The honours of a poet's name

To Somers' counsels, or to Hampden's arms,

Thee, Freedom, I rejoin, and bless thy genuine

flame,

III. 2.

Great citizen of Albion. Thee

Heroic Valor still attends,

And useful Science pleas'd to see
How Art her studious toil extends:
While Truth, diffusing from on high
A lustre unconfin'd as day,

Fills and commands the public eye;

Till, pierc'd and sinking by her powerful ray, Tame Faith and monkish Awe, like nightly demons.

fly.

III. 3.

Hence the whole land the patriot's ardour shares:
Hence dread Religion dwells with social Joy;
And holy passions and unsullied cares,
In youth, in age, domestic life employ.
O fair Britannia, hail! With partial love
The tribes of men their native seats approve,
Unjust and hostile to each foreign fame;
But when for generous minds and manly laws
A nation holds her prime applause,
There public zeal shall all reproof disclaim.

ODE IX.

TO CURIO. 1744.

I.

THRICE hath the Spring beheld thy faded fame Since I exulting grasp'd the tuneful shell: Eager through endless years to sound thy name,

Proud that my memory with thine should dwell.

How hast thou stain'd the splendour of my

choice!

Those godlike forms which hover'd round thy voice,

Laws, freedom, glory, whither are they flown? What can I now of thee to Time report,

Save thy fond country made thy impious sport, Her fortune and her hope the victims of thy own?

II.

There are with eyes unmov'd and reckless heart Who saw thee from thy summit fall thus low, Who deem'd thy arm extended but to dart The public vengeance on thy private foe. But, spite of every gloss of envious minds, The owl-ey'd race whom virtue's lustre blinds, Who sagely prove that each man hath his price, I still believ'd thy aim from blemish free, I yet, even yet, believe it, spite of thee And all thy painted pleas to greatness and to vice.

III.

"Thou didst not dream of liberty decay'd,
Nor wish to make her guardian laws more strong:
But the rash many, first by thee misled,
Bore thee at length unwillingly along."
Rise from your sad abodes, ye curst of old
For faith deserted or for cities sold,
Own here one untried, unexampled deed;
One mystery of shame from Curio learn,
To beg the infamy he did not earn, [meed.
And scape in Guilt's disguise from Virtue's offer'd

IV.

For saw we not that dangerous power avow'd
Whom Freedom oft hath found her mortal bane,
Whom public Wisdom ever strove to exclude,
And but with blushes suffereth in her train?
Corruption vaunted her bewitching spoils,
O'er court, o'er senate, spread in pomp her toils,
And call'd herself the state's directing soul;
Till Curio, like a good magician, tried,

With Eloquence and Reason at his side,

By strength of holier spells the inchantress to control.

V.

Soon with thy country's hope thy fame extends;
The rescued merchant oft thy words resounds;
Thee and thy cause the rural hearth defends;
His bowl to thee the grateful sailor crowns;
The learn'd recluse, with awful zeal who read
Of Grecian heroes, Roman patriots dead,
Now with like awe doth living merit scan,
While he, whom virtue in his blest retreat
Bade social ease and public passions meet,
Ascends the civil scene, and knows to be a man.

VI.

At length in view the glorious end appear'd:
We saw the spirit through the senate reign;
And Freedom's friends thy instant omen heard
Of laws for which their fathers bled in vain.
Wak'd in the strife, the public Genius rose
More keen, more ardent from his long repose;