"But let untender thoughts afar be driven; "And happiness of virtue; nor can they "Be free to keep the path who are not free to stray. "Yet leave me not. I would allay that grief, "Which else might thy young virtue overpower; "And in thy converse I shall find relief, "When the dark shades of melancholy lower; "For solitude has many a dreary hour, "Even when exempt from grief, remorse, and pain: "Come often then; for, haply, in my bower, "Amusement, knowledge, wisdom thou may'st gain. "If I one soul improve, I have not liv'd in vain." And now, at length, to Edwin's ardent gaze The Muse of history unrolls her page. But few, alas! the scenes her art displays, To charm his fancy, or his heart engage. Here chiefs their thirst of power in blood assuage; And straight their flames with tenfold fierceness burn: Here smiling Virtue prompts the patriot's rage, But, lo! ere long, is left alone to mourn, And languish in the dust, and clasp the abandon'd urn. "Ah! what avails," he said, "to trace the springs, "That whirl of empire the stupendous wheel! "Ah! what have I to do with conquering kings, "Hands drench'd in blood, and breasts begirt with steel! "To those, whom Nature taught to think and feel, "Heroes, alas! are things of small concern. "Could History man's secret heart reveal, "And what imports a heaven-born mind to learn, "Her transcripts to explore what bosom would not yearn! "This praise, O Cheronean Sage, is thine. '(Why should this praise to thee alone belong?) "All else from Nature's moral path decline, "Lur'd by the toys that captivate the throng; "To herd in cabinets and camps, among Spoil, carnage, and the cruel pomp of pride; "Or chant of heraldry the drowsy song, "How tyrant blood o'er many a region wide, "Rolls to a thousand thrones its execrable tide. "O who of man the story will unfold, "Ere victory and empire wrought annoy, "In that elysian age (misnam'd of gold) "The age of love, and innocence, and joy, "When all were great and free! man's sole employ "To deck the bosom of his parent earth; "Or toward his bower the murmuring stream decoy, "To aid the floweret's long-expected birth, [mirth. "And lull the bed of peace, and crown the board of "Sweet were your shades, O ye primeval groves, "Whose boughs to man his food and shelter lent, "Pure in his pleasures, happy in his loves, "His eye still smiling, and his heart content. [went. “Then, hand in hand, Health, Sport, and Labor "Nature supply'd the wish she taught to crave. "None prowl'd for prey, none watch'd to circumvent. "To all an equal lot Heaven's bounty gave: "No vassal fear'd his lord, no tyrant fear'd his slave. " But, ah! th' Historic Muse has never dar'd "To pierce those hallow'd bowers: 'tis Fancy's beam "Pour'd on the vision of the enraptur'd Bard, "That paints the charms of that delicious theme, "Then hail, sweet Faney's ray! and hail the dream "That weans the weary soul from guilt and woe! "Careless what others of my choice may deem, "I long where Love and Fancy lead to go, "And meditate on Heaven; enough of earth I know." Plutarch. "I cannot blame thy choice" the Sage replied, For soft and smooth are Fancy's flowery ways. "And yet even there, if left without a guide, "The young adventurer unsafely plays. Eyes dazzled long by Fiction's gaudy rays "In modest Truth no light nor beauty find. And, who, my child, would trust the meteor-blaze, "That soon must fail, and leave the wanderer blind, "More dark and helpless far, than if it ne'er had shin'd? "Fancy enervates, while it soothes, the heart, "And while it dazzles, wounds the mental sight: "To joy each heightening charm it can impart, "But wraps the hour of woe in tenfold night. "And often, where no real ills affright, "Its visionary fiends, an endless train, "Assail with equal or superior might, "And thro' the throbbing heart, and dizzy brain, "And shivering nerves, shoot stings of more than mortal pain, "And yet, alas! the real ills of life "Claim the full vigor of a mind prepar'd, "Prepared for patient, long, laborious strife, "Its guide Experience, and Truth its guard. "We fare on earth as other men have far'd: "Were they successful? Let not us despair. "Was disappointment oft their sole reward? "Yet shall their tale instruct, if it declare, How they have borne the load ourselves are doom'd to bear. "What charms the Historic Muse adorn, from spoils "And blood, and tyrants, when she wings her flight, "To hail the patriot Prince, whose pious toils "Sacred to science, liberty, and right, "And peace, thro' every age divinely bright "Shall shine the boast and wonder of mankind: "Sees yonder sun, from his meridian height "A lovelier scene, than Virtue thus enshrin'd "In power, and man with man for mutual aid combin'd? "Hail, sacred Polity, by Freedom rear'd! "Hail, sacred Freedom, when by Law restrain'd! "Without you what were man? A groveling herd "In darkness, wretchedness, and want enchain'd. "Sublim'd by you, the Greek and Roman reign'd "In arts unrivall'd: O, to latest days, "In Albion may your influence unprofan'd "To godlike worth the generous bosom raise, "And prompt the Sage's lore, and fire the Poet's lays! "But now let other themes our care engage. "For, lo! with modest yet majestic grace, To curb Imagination's lawless rage, "And from within the cherish'd heart to brace, Philosophy appears. The gloomy race " "By Indolence and moping Fancy bred, Fear, Discontent, Solicitude give place, "And Hope and Courage brighten in their stead, "While on the kindling soul her vital beams are shed. "Then waken from long lethargy to life* "The seeds of happiness, and powers of thought; "Then jarring appetites forego their strife, "A strife by ignorance to madness wrought. Pleasure by savage man is dearly bought "With fell revenge, lust that defies control, "With gluttony and death. The mind untaught "Is a dark waste, where fiends and tempests howl; "As Phoebus to the world, is Science to the soul. • The influence of the Philosophic Spirit, in humanizing the mind, and preparing it for intellectual exertion, and delicate pleasure ;-in exploring, by the help of geometry, the system of the universe;-in banishing superstition;in promoting navigation, agriculture, medicine, and moral and political science;-from this Stanza to the end of the first Stanza, Page 31. "And Reason now, thro' number, time, and space, "Darts the keen lustre of her serious eye, "And learns, from facts compar'd, the laws to trace, "Whose long progression leads to Deity. "Can mortal strength presume to soar so high! "Can mortal sight, so oft bedim'd with tears, "Such glory bear!-for lo! the shadows fly "From Nature's face; Confusion disappears, "And order charms the eyes, and harmony the ears. "In the deep windings of the grove no more "The hag obscene, and grisly phantom dwell; "Nor in the fall of mountain-stream, or roar "Of winds, is heard the angry spirit's yell; "No wizard mutters the tremendous spell, "Nor sinks convulsive in prophetic swoon; "Nor bids the noise of drums and trumpets swell, "To ease of fancied pangs the laboring moon, "Or chase the shade that blots the blazing orb of noon. "Many a long lingering year, in lonely isle, "Stunn'd with the eternal turbulence of waves, "Lo, with dim eyes that never learn'd to smile, "And trembling hands, the famish'd native craves "Of Heaven his wretched fare: shivering in caves, "Or scorch'd on rocks, he pines from day to day; "But Science gives the word; and lo, he braves "The surge and tempest, lighted by her ray, "And to a happier land wafts merrily away. "And even where Nature loads the teeming plain "With the full pomp of vegetable store, "Her bounty, unimprov'd, is deadly bane: "Dark woods and rankling wilds, from shore to shore "Stretch their enormous gloom; which to explore "Even Fancy trembles in her sprightliest mood; "For there each eye-ball gleams with lust of gore, "Nestles each murderous and each monstrous brood, "Plague lurks in every shade, and streams from every flood. |