ODE ON THE SPRING.

Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Fair Venus' train appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,

The untaught harmony of Spring : While, whispering pleasure as they fly, Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky Their gather'd fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade;
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclin'd in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care :
The panting herds repose :
Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon :
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the Sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of man :

And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.

Alike the busy and the gay
But flutter through life's little day,

In Fortune's varying colours drest :
Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance;
Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance
They leave in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear in accents low
The sportive kind reply;
"Poor moralist! and what art thou ?
A solitary fly!

Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display :
On hasty wings thy youth is flown :
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone-
We frolic while 't 'is May."

ODE FOR MUSIC.

PERFORMED IN THE SENATE-HOUSE AT CAMBRIDGE,
JULY 1. 1769, AT THE INSTALLATION OF HIS
GRACE AUGUSTUS-HENRY-FITZROY, DUKE OF GRAF-
TON, CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY.

"Hence, avaunt, ('t is holy ground,)
Comus and his midnight-crew,
And Ignorance with looks profound,
And dreaming Sloth of pallid hue,

Mad Sedition's cry profane,
Servitude that hugs her chain,

Nor in these consecrated bowers

Let painted Flattery hide her serpent-train in flowers.

Nor Envy base, nor creeping Gain,

Dare the Muse's walk to stain,

While bright-ey'd Science watches round:

Hence, away, 't is holy ground!"

From yonder realms of empyrean day
Bursts on my ear th' indignant lay :
There sit the sainted sage, the bard divine,
The few, whom genius gave to shine

Through every unborn age and undiscover'd clime.

Rapt in celestial transport they,

Yet hither oft a glance from high

• They send of tender sympathy

To bless the place, where on their opening soul
First the genuine ardour stole.

'T was Milton struck the deep-ton'd shell,

And, as the choral warblings round him swell, Meek Newton's self bends from his state sublime, And nods his hoary head, and listens to the rhyme.

" Ye brown o'er-arching groves,

That Contemplation loves,

Where willowy Camus lingers with delight!
Oft at the blush of dawn

I trod your level lawn,

Oft woo'd the gleam of Cynthia silver-bright
In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of Folly,
With Freedom by my side, and soft-ey'd Melan-

choly."

But hark! the portals sound, and pacing forth
With solemn steps and slow,

High potentates and dames of royal birth,

And mitred fathers in long order go: Great Edward *, with the lilies on his brow, From haughty Gallia torn,

And sad Chatillon †, on her bridal morn

That wept her bleeding love, and princely Clare †,
And Anjou's § heroine, and the paler rose ||,
The rival of her crown and of her woes,

And either Henry there,

* Edward the Third; who added the fleur-delis of France to the arms of England. He founded Trinity College.

+ Mary de Valentia, Countess of Pembroke, daughter of Guy de Chatillon, Comte de St. Paul in France: of whom tradition says, that her hus band, Audemar de Valentia, Earl of Pembroke, was slain at a tournament on the day of his nuptials. She was the foundress of Pembroke College or Hall, under the name of Aula Mariæ de Valentia.

† Elizabeth de Burg, Countess of Clare, was wife of John de Burg, son and heir of the Earl of Ulster, and daughter of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, by Joan of Acres, daughter of Edward the First. Hence the poet gives her the epithet of princely. She founded Clare-Hall.

§ Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry the Sixth, foundress of Queen's College.

|| Elizabeth Widville, wife of Edward the Fourth (hence called the paler rose, as being of the house of York). She added to the foundation of Margaret of Anjou.

Henry the Sixth and Eighth. The former the founder of King's, the latter the greatest benefactor to Trinity College.

The murder'd saint, and the majestic lord,
That broke the bonds of Rome.

(Their tears, their little triumphs o'er,
Their human passions now no more,
Save Charity, that glows beyond the tomb),
All that on Granta's fruitful plain
Rich streams of regal bounty pour'd,
And bade these aweful fanes and turrets rise,
To hail their Fitzroy's festal morning come;
And thus they speak in soft accord
The liquid language of the skies.

" What is grandeur, what is power?
Heavier toil, superior pain.
What the bright reward we gain ?
The grateful memory of the good.
Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,
The bee's collected treasure's sweet,
Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still small voice of Gratitude."

Foremost and leaning from her golden cloud
The venerable Marg'ret * see!
"Welcome, my noble son," she cries aloud,
"To this, thy kindred train, and me:
Pleas'd in thy lineaments we trace
A Tudor's † fire, a Beaufort's grace.

* Countess of Richmond and Derby; the mother of Henry the Seventh, foundress of St. John's and Christ's Colleges.

† The Countess was a Beaufort, and married to a Tudor; hence the application of this line to the Duke of Grafton, who claims descent from both these families.