BOOK II.

Can arm him with such strong

command

That the young sorcerer's fatal hand

Should round my soul his pleasing fetters tie. Nor yet the courtier's hope, the giving smile, (A lighter phantom, and a baser chain,) Did e'er in slumber my proud lyre beguile To lend the pomp of thrones her ill-according strain.

VI.

But, Morpheus, on thy balmy wing
Such honourable visions bring

As sooth'd great Milton's injur'd age,
When in prophetic dreams he saw
The race unborn, with pious awe,

Imbibe each virtue from his heavenly page:
Or such as Mead's benignant fancy knows,
When health's deep treasures, by his art explor'd,
Have sav'd the infant from an orphan's woes,
Or to the trembling sire his age's hope restor❜d.

ODE III.

TO THE CUCKOO.

I.

O RUSTIC herald of the Spring,
At length in yonder woody vale.
Fast by the brook I hear thee sing;
And, studious of thy homely tale,
Amid the vespers of the grove,
Amid the chaunting choir of love,
Thy sage responses hail.

II.

The time has been when I have frown'd
To hear thy voice the woods invade;
And while thy solemn accent drown'd
Some sweeter poet of the shade,
Thus, thought I, thus the sons of care
Some constant youth or generous fair
With dull advice upbraid.

III.

I said, "While Philomela's song
Proclaims the passion of the grove,
It ill beseems a cuckoo's tongue
Her charming language to reprove"-
Alas, how much a lover's ear
Hates all the sober truth to hear,

The sober truth of love!

IV.

When hearts are in each other bless'd,
When nought but lofty faith can rule
The nymph's and swain's consenting breast,
How cuckoo-like in Cupid's school,
With store of grave prudential saws
On fortune's power and custom's laws,
Appears each friendly fool!

V.

Yet think betimes, ye gentle train
Whom love and hope and fancy sway,
Who every harsher care disdain,
Who by the morning judge the day,

Think that, in April's fairest hours,

TO THE HONOURABLE CHARLES TOWNSHEND,

IN THE COUNTRY. 1750.

I. 1.

How oft shall I survey

This humble roof, the lawn, the greenwood shade, The vale with sheaves o'erspread,

The glassy brook, the flocks which round thee stray?
When will thy cheerful mind

Of these have utter'd all her dear esteem?
Or tell me, dost thou deem

No more to join in glory's toilsome race,

But here content embrace

That happy leisure which thou hadst resign'd?

I. 2.

Alas! ye happy hours,

When books and youthful sport the soul could share,

Ere one ambitious care

Of civil life had aw'd her simpler powers;
Oft as your winged train

Revisit here my friend in white array,

O fail not to display

Each fairer scene where I perchance had part,

That so his generous heart

The abode of even friendship may remain.

Ꮓ

I. 3.

For not imprudent of my loss to come,
I saw from Contemplation's quiet cell
His feet ascending to another home
Where public praise and envied greatness dwell.
But shall we therefore, O my lyre,
Reprove ambition's best desire?
Extinguish glory's flame?

Far other was the task enjoin'd

When to my hand thy strings were first assign'd: Far other faith belongs to friendship's honour'd

name.

II. 1.

Thee, Townshend, not the arms

Of slumbering Ease, nor Pleasure's rosy chain. Were destin'd to detain:

No, nor bright Science, nor the Muse's charms. For them high heaven prepares

Their proper votaries, an humbler band:

And ne'er would Spenser's hand

Have deign'd to strike the warbling Tuscan shell,

Nor Harrington to tell
What habit an immortal city wears,

II. 2.

Had this been born to shield

The cause which Cromwell's impious hand betray'd.

Or that, like Vere, display'd

His redcross banner o'er the Belgian field.
Yet where the will divine

Hath shut those loftiest paths, it next remains,
With reason clad in strains

ss dwel

Of harmony, selected minds to inspire,
And virtue's living fire

To feed and eternize in hearts like thine.

II. 3.

For never shall the herd, whom envy sways,
So quell my purpose or my tongue control,
That I should fear illustrious worth to praise,
Because its master's friendship mov'd my soul.
Yet, if this undissembling strain

Should now perhaps thine ear detain
With any pleasing sound,
Remember thou that righteous Fame
From hoary age a strict account will claim
Of each auspicious palm with which thy youth was

crown'd.

III. 1.

Nor obvious is the way

Where heaven expects thee, nor the traveller leads,

Through flowers or fragrant meads,

Or groves that hark to Philomela's lay.

The impartial laws of fate

To nobler virtues wed severer cares,
Is there a man who shares

The summit next where heavenly natures dwell?
Ask him (for he can tell)

What storms beat round that rough laborious

height.

III. 2.

Ye heroes, who of old

Did generous England Freedom's throne ordain;