Then shall my jocund harp, attun'd To thy true ear, with sweeter sound Pursue the free Horatian song: Old Tyne shall listen to my tale, And Echo down the bordering vale The liquid melody prolong. ODE III. TO A FRIEND, UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOVE. INDEED, my Phædria, if to find That wealth can female wishes gain, Yet I perhaps mistake the case— To count it such a slight affair? When Hesper gilds the shaded sky, Oft as you seek the well-known grove, Methinks I see you cast your eye Back to the morning scenes of love: Each pleasing word you heard her say, Her gentle look, her graceful way,' Again your struggling fancy move. Then tell me, is your soul entire? Does Wisdom calmly hold her throne? Then can you question each desire, Bid this remain, and that begone? No tear half-starting from your eye? No kindling blush you know not why? No stealing sigh, nor stifled groan? Away with this unmanly mood! See where the hoary churl appears, Ye guardian powers of love and fame, Cease then to gaze with looks of love : Then wherefore should she prove your care? O just escap'd the faithless main, Though driven unwilling on the land; To guide your favour'd steps again, Behold your better genius stand: Where Truth revolves her page divine, Where Virtue leads to Honour's shrine, Behold, he lifts his awful hand. Fix but on these your ruling aim, And Time, the sire of manly Care, Will Fancy's dazzling colours tame, A soberer dress will Beauty wear: Then shall Esteem, by Knowledge led, Enthrone within your heart and head Some happier love, some truer fair. ODE IV. AFFECTED INDIFFERENCE. TO THE SAME. YES, you contemn the perjur'd maid, Or stoop to love: since now esteem, Yet tell me, Phædria, tell me why, You meant the fair apostate to upbraid? ODE V. AGAINST SUSPICION. On fly! 'tis dire Suspicion's mien ; Fly far! already in your eyes And soon through every vein, Then many a demon will she raise Through whirlwinds and through night. No more can faith or candour move; But each ingenuous deed of love, Which reason would applaud, Now, smiling o'er her dark distress, Fancy malignant strives to dress Like Injury and Fraud. Farewell to Virtue's peaceful times: Soon will you stoop to act the crimes Which thus you stoop to fear: Guilt follows guilt: and where the train Begins with wrongs of such a stain, What horrours form the rear! 'Tis thus to work her baleful power, Suspicion waits the sullen hour Of fretfulness and strife, When care the infirmer bosom wrings, Or Eurus waves his murky wings To damp the seats of life. But come, forsake the scene unbless'd, To groundless fears a prey: Thron'd in the Sun's descending car, O thou, whate'er thy awful name, With social love restrains; Let universal candour still, Nor this nor that man's crooked ways. ODE VI. HYMN TO CHEERFULNESS. How thick the shades of evening close! How pale the sky with weight of snows! Haste, light the tapers, urge the fire, And bid the joyless day retire. -Alas! in vain I try within To brighten the dejected scene, While rous'd by grief these fiery pains Tear the frail texture of my veins; While Winter's voice, that storms around, And yon deep death-bell's groaning sound Renew my mind's oppressive gloom, Till starting horrour shakes the room. Is there in Nature no kind power To sooth Affliction's lonely hour? To blunt the edge of dire Disease, And teach these wintery shades to please? Come, Cheerfulness, triumphant fair, As once ('twas in Astræa's reign) The joys which from her presence flow, Thou, Cheerfulness, by Heaven design'd Fair guardian of domestic life, Is there a youth, whose anxious heart Friend to the Muse and all her train, For thee I court the Muse again: The Muse for thee may well exert Her pomp, her charms, her fondest art, Who owes to thee that pleasing sway Which Earth and peopled Heaven obey. Let Melancholy's plaintive tongue Repeat what later bards have sung; But thine was Homer's ancient might, And thine victorious Pindar's flight: Thy hand each Lesbian wreath attir'd; Thy lip Sicilian reeds inspir'd: Thy spirit len the glad perfume Whence yet the flowers of Teos bloom; Whence yet from Tibur's sabine vale Delicious blows the enlivening gale, While Horace calls thy sportive choir, Heroes and nymphs, around his lyre. But see where yonder pensive sage (A prey perhaps to Fortune's rage, Perhaps by tender griefs oppress'd, Or blooms congenial to his breast) Retires in desert scenes to dwell, And bids the joyless world farewell. Alone he treads the autumnal shade, Alone beneath the mountain laid He sees the nightly damps ascend And gathering storms aloft impend; He hears the neighbouring surges roll, And raging thunders shake the pole: Then, struck by every object round, And stunn'd by every horrid sound, He asks a clue for Nature's ways; But evil haunts him through the maze: He sees ten thousand demons rise To wield the empire of the skies, And Chance and Fate assume the rod, And Malice blot the throne of God. -O thou, whose pleasing power I sing, Thy lenient influence hither bring; Compose the storm, dispel the gloom, Till Nature wear her wonted bloom, Till fields and shades their sweets exhale, And music swell each opening gale: Then o'er his breast thy softness pour, And let him learn the timely hour To trace the world's benignant laws, And judge of that presiding cause, Who founds on discord Beauty's reign, Converts to pleasure every pain, Subdues each hostile form to rest, And bids the universe be bless'd. O thou whose pleasing power I sing, If right I touch the votive string, If equal praise I yield thy name, Still govern thou thy poet's flame: Still with the Muse my bosom share, And sooth to peace intruding Care. But most exert thy pleasing power On Friendship's consecrated hour; And while my Sophron points the road To godlike Wisdom's calm abode, Or warm in Freedom's ancient cause Traceth the source of Albion's laws, Add thou o'er all the generous toil The light of thy unclouded smile. But, if by Fortune's stubborn sway, From him and Friendship torn away, I court the Muse's healing spell For griefs that still with absence dwell, Do thou conduct my fancy's dreams ODE VII. ON THE USE OF POETRY. NOT for themselves did human kind Yet still the self-depending soul, The rank in which he stands. Who train'd by laws the future age, Didst rule my natal hour. Not far beneath the hero's feet, Stands far remote the bard. Lycurgus fashion'd Sparta's fame, And tongues and climes obey. And thus when William's acts divine Yet then shall Shakspeare's powerful art ODE VIII ON LEAVING HOLLAND. FAREWELL to Leyden's lonely bound, The Belgian Muse's sober seat; Where, dealing frugal gifts around To all the favourites at her feet, She trains the body's bulky frame For passive, persevering toils; And lest, from any prouder aim, The daring mind should scorn her homely spoils, She breathes maternal fogs to damp its restless flame. Farewell the grave, pacific air, Where never mountain zephyr blew : Which Pan, which Ceres never knew: Urging in vain their urns to flow; 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, undignify'd 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. O my lov'd England, when with thee When on thy hills the flocks admire, Ye nymphs, who guard the pathless grove, With whom at noon I talk'd in dreams: The rocky spring, the greenwood glade; And thou, my faithful harp, no longer mourn With Venus and with Juno move In concert round the Olympian fathers' throne? III. Thee too, protectress of my lays, To Somers' counsels, or to Hampden's arms, Thee, Freedom, I rejoin, and bless thy genuine flame. Great citizen of Albion! thee How Art her studious toil extends, Fills and commands the public eye; Hence the whole land the patriot's ardour shares, In youth, in age, domestic life employ. O, ye good powers! who look on human kind, Instruct the mighty moments as they roll; And watch the fleeting shapes in Curio's mind, And steer his passions steady to the goal. O Alfred, father of the English name, O valiant Edward, first in civil fame, O William, height of public virtue pure, Bend from your radiant seats a joyful eye, Behold the sum of all your labours nigh, Your plans of law complete, your ends of rule secure. Twas then-Oshame! O soul from faith estrang'd! O Albion, oft to flattering vows a prey! 'Twas then-Thy thought what sudden frenzy chang'd? What rushing palsy took thy strength away? Is this the man in Freedom's cause approv'd? The man so great, so honour'd, so belov'd? Whom the dead envy'd, and the living bless'd? This patient slave by tinsel bonds allur'd? This wretched suitor for a boon abjur'd? Whom those that fear'd him, scorn; that trusted him, detest? O lost alike to action and repose! With all that habit of familiar fame, Sold to the mockery of relentless foes, And doom'd to exhaust the dregs of life in shame, To act with burning brow and throbbing heart A poor deserter's dull exploded part, To slight the favour thou canst hope no more, Renounce the giddy crowd, the vulgar wind, Charge thy own lightness on thy country's mind, And from her voice appeal to each tame foreign shore. But England's sons, to purchase thence applause, Nor to the forms of rule betray the end. Prompt with a lover's fondness to survey; Yet, where Injustice works her wilful claim, Fierce as the flight of Jove's destroying flame, Impatient to confront, and dreadful to repay. These thy heart owns no longer. In their room See the grave queen of pageants, Honour, dwell, Couch'd in thy bosom's deep tempestuous gloom Like some grim idol in a sorcerer's cell. Before her rites thy sickening reason flew, Divine Persuasion from thy tongue withdrew, While Laughter mock'd, or Pity stole a sigh: Can Wit her tender movements rightly frame Where the prime function of the soul is lame? Can Fancy's feeble springs the force of Truth supply? But come: 'tis time: strong Destiny impends To shut thee from the joys thou hast betray'd: With princes fill'd, the solemn fane ascends, By Infamy, the mindful demon sway'd. There vengeful vows for guardian laws effac'd, From nations fetter'd, and from towns laid waste, For ever through the spacious courts resound: There long posterity's united groan, And the sad charge of horrours not their own, Assail the giant chiefs, and press them to the ground. In sight old Time, imperious judge, awaits: The great, the sage, the happy, and august. And still he asks them of the hidden plan Whence every treaty, every war began, Evolves their secrets, and their guilt proclaims: And still his bands despoil them on the road Of each vain wreath by lying bards bestow'd, And crush their trophies huge, and rașe their sculptur'd names, Ye mighty shades, arise, give place, attend: Here his eternal mansion Curio seeks: [bend, -Low doth proud Wentworth to the stranger And his dire welcome hardy Clifford speaks: "He comes, whom late with surer arts prepar'd To accomplish all which we but vainly dar'd: Whom o'er the stubborn herd she taught to reign: Who sooth'd with gaudy dreams their raging Even to its last irrevocable hour; [power, Then baffled their rude strength, and broke them to the chain." But ye, whom yet wise Liberty inspires, Whom for her champions o'er the world she claims, (That household godhead, whom of old your sires Sought in the woods of Elbe, and bore to Drive ye this hostile omen far away; [Thames) Their own fell efforts on her foes repay; Your wealth, your arts, your fame, be her's alone: Still gird your swords to combat on her side; Still frame your laws her generous test to abide; And win to her defence the altar and the throne. Protect her from yourselves, ere yet the flood Which not her lightest discipline endures: Snatch from fantastic demagogues her cause: Dream not of Numa's manners, Plato's laws: |