Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore

With patience many a year she bore :

What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,

And leave us leisure to be good.

Light they disperse, and with them go

The summer friend, the flatt'ring foe;

By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom in sable garb array'd,

Immersed in rapt'rous thought profound,

And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground,

Still on thy solemn steps attend :

Warm Charity, the genʼral friend,

With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head,

Dread goddess, lay thy chast'ning hand!

Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band.

(As by the impious thou art seen,)

With thund'ring voice and threat'ning mien,

With screaming Horror's fun'ral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty:

Thy form benign, O goddess, wear,

Thy milder influence impart, Thy philosophic train be there

To soften, not to wound, my heart. The gen'rous spark extinct revive, Teach me to love and to forgive,

Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a Man.

AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake,

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.

From Helicon's harmonious springs

A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
The laughing flowers that round them blow,
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;
Now rolling down the steep amain,

Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;

The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar.

I. 2.

Oh! Sov'reign of the willing soul,

Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares

And frantic Passions hear thy soft control.
On Thracia's hills the Lord of War
Has curb'd the fury of his car,

And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command.
Perching on the sceptred hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie

The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

I. 3.

Thee the voice, the dance, obey,

Temper'd to thy warbled lay.

O'er Idalia's velvet-green

The rosy-crowned Loves are seen

On Cytherea's day;

With antic Sport, and blue-eyed Pleasures,

Frisking light in frolic measures;

Now pursuing, now retreating,

Now in circling troops they meet:

To brisk notes in cadence beating,
Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare :
Where'er she turns, the Graces homage pay.

With arms sublime, that float upon the air,
In gliding state she wins her easy way :

O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

II. I.

Man's feeble race what ills await!

Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,

Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, sad refuge from the storms of fate!

The fond complaint, my song, disprove,

And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse?

Night and all her sickly dews,

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,
He gives to range the dreary sky;

D