But com'st a decent maid, In Attic robe arrayed, O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I call! By all the honeyed store On Hybla's thymy shore, ΙΟ By all her blooms and mingled murmurs dear; 15 By her whose lovelorn woe, In ev'ning musings slow, Soothed sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear; By old Cephisus deep, Who spread his wavy sweep, In warbled wand'rings round thy green retreat; On whose enamelled side When holy Freedom died, No equal haunt allured thy future feet; O sister meek of Truth, To my admiring youth Thy sober aid and native charms infuse! The flow'rs that sweetest breathe, 20 25 Though Beauty culled the wreath, Still ask thy hand to range their ordered hues. 30 While Rome could none esteem But virtue's patriot theme, You loved her hills, and led her laureate band; But staid to sing alone To one distinguished throne, 35 And turned thy face and fled her altered land. No more, in hall or bow'r, The passions own thy pow'r; Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean: For thou hast left her shrine; 40 Nor olive more, nor vine, Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene. Though taste, though genius bless To some divine excess, Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole: 45 What each, what all supply, May court, may charm our eye; Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul! Of these let others ask, To aid some mighty task; I only seek to find thy temp'rate vale, Where oft my reed might sound To maids and shepherds round, And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale. 1746. ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER STROPHE As once-if not with light regard I read aright that gifted bard (Him whose school above the rest His loveliest Elfin Queen has blest)— One, only one, unrivalled fair Might hope the magic girdle wear, As if, in air unseen, some hov'ring hand, Some chaste and angel friend to virgin fame, With whispered spell had burst the starting band, Her baffled hand, with vain endeavour, Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name, To whom, prepared and bathed in heav'n, To few the godlike gift assigns To gird their blest, prophetic loins, And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmixed her flame! EPODE The band, as fairy legends say, Was wove on that creating day 50 5 ΙΟ 15 20 When He Who called with thought to birth 25 And poured the main engirting all, And placed her on his sapphire throne, And she, from out the veiling cloud, Breathed her magic notes aloud, And thou, thou rich-haired Youth of Morn, 40 The dang'rous passions kept aloof, ANTISTROPHE High on some cliff, to heav'n up-piled, 55 Strange shades o'erbrow the valleys deep, 60 Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock, 45 50 30 By which as Milton lay, his ev'ning ear, 65 Nigh sphered in heav'n, its native strains could hear, On which that ancient trump he reached was hung: Thither oft, his glory greeting, From Waller's myrtle shades retreating, With many a vow from Hope's aspiring tongue, My trembling feet his guiding steps pursue; In vain-such bliss to one alone Of all the sons of soul was known, 70 And Heav'n and Fancy, kindred pow'rs, Or curtained close such scene from ev'ry future view. ODE 1746. WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1746 1746. How sleep the brave who sink to rest By fairy hands their knell is wrung, 1746. ODE TO EVENING If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song Thy springs and dying gales, O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed: 5 Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat, His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum: Now teach me, maid composed, To breathe some softened strain, Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale, As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return! For when thy folding-star, arising, shows ΙΟ 15 20 And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge 25 And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and, lovelier still, The pensive Pleasures sweet, Prepare thy shadowy car. Then lead, calm vot'ress, where some sheety lake Reflect its last cool gleam. But when chill blust'ring winds or driving rain That from the mountain's side And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires, Thy dewy fingers draw The gradual dusky veil. 30 35 40 |