I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow,

As waving fresh their gladsome wing, My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth,

To breathe a second spring.

Say, father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green,
The paths of pleasure trace;
Who foremost now delight to cleave,
With pliant arm, thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthral?
What idle progeny succeed

To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent

Their murmuring labours ply 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint

To sweeten liberty:

Some bold adventurers disdain

The limits of their little reign,

And unknown regions dare descry: Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health, of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,

And lively cheer, of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th' approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom
The little victims play;

No sense have they of ills to come,

Nor care beyond to-day:

Yet see, how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah, show them where in ambush stand, To sieze their prey, the murderous band! Ah, tell them, they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth,

That inly gnaws the secret heart; And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' altered eye,

That mocks the tear it forced to flow; And keen Remorse with blood defiled, And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe.

Lo! in the vale of years beneath
A griesly troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen :

This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That every labouring sinew strains,

To each his sufferings: all are men,

Condemn'd alike to groan ;

The tender for another's pain,

The unfeeling for his own.

Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more ;-where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

HYMN TO ADVERSITY.

Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
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 learned to melt at others' woe

VOL. III.

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 flattering foe;

By vain Prosperity received,

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

Wisdom in sable garb arrayed,

Immersed in rapturous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend :
Warm Charity, the general 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 chastening hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band

(As by the impious thou art seen)

With thundering voice, and threatening mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,

Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty:

Thy form benign, oh goddess, wear,

Thy milder influence impart,

Thy philosophic train be there

To soften, not to wound, my heart.

The generous 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

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

I. I.

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 roa

1. 2.

Oh! Sovereign 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:

Quenched 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 scen
On Cytherea's day;