In some far diftant region of this globe Sequester'd stalk, with lifted head on high O'ertowering Atlas, on whose shoulders rest The stars, terrific even to the gods.
Never the Theban feer, whose blindness proved His beft illumination, him beheld
In fecret vifion; never him the son
Of Pleione, amid the noiseless night Descending, to the prophet-choir reveal'd; Him never knew the Affyrian priest, who The ancestry of Ninus' chronicles, And Belus, and Ofiris, far renown'd;
Nor even thrice great Hermes, although skill'd So deep in mystery, to the worshippers Of Ifis fhow'd a prodigy like him.
And thou, who hast immortalized the shades
Of Academus, if the fchools received
This monster of the fancy firft from thee,
Either recall at once the banifh'd bards To thy republic, or thyself, evinced A wilder fabulift, go alfo forth.
H that Pieria's spring would through my
Pour its infpiring influence, and rush
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood! That, for my venerable Father's fake
All meaner themes renounced, my mufe, on wings Of duty borne, might reach a loftier ftrain. For thee, my Father! how foe'er it please, She frames this flender work; nor know I aught That may thy gifts more fuitably requite; Though to requite them fuitably would afk Returns much nobler, and furpaffing far The meagre stores of verbal gratitude: But, fuch as I poffefs, I fend thee all. This page prefents thee in their full amount With thy fon's treasures, and the fum is nought; Nought, save the riches that from airy dream In fecret grottos and in laurel bowers,
I have, by golden Clio's gift, acquired.
Verfe is a work divine; despise not thou Verse therefore, which evinces (nothing more) Man's heavenly fource, and which, retaining still Some fcintillations of Promethean fire,
Bespeaks him animated from above.
The Gods love verfe; the infernal Powers themfelves
Confefs the influence of verse, which stirs The lowest deep, and binds in triple chains Of adamant both Pluto and the Shades. In verfe the Delphic priestess and the pale Tremulous Sibyl make the future known; And he who facrifices, on the shrine
Hangs verse, both when he fmites the threatening bull
And when he spreads his reeking entrails wide To fcrutinize the Fates enveloped there.
We too, ourselves, what time we seek again
Our native skies, and one eternal now Shall be the only measure of our being,
Crown'd all with gold, and chanting to the lyre Harmonious verse, shall range the courts above, And make the starry firmament resound. And, even now, the fiery spirit pure
That wheels yon circling orbs, directs himself Their mazy dance with melody of verse Unutterable, immortal, hearing which Huge Ophiucus holds his hiss suppress'd; Orion, soften'd, drops his ardent blade, And Atlas ftands unconscious of his load. Verse graced of old the feasts of kings, ere yet Luxurious dainties, deftined to the gulf Immense of gluttony, were known, and ere Lyæus deluged yet the temperate board. Then fat the bard a cuftomary guest
To share the banquet, and his length of locks With beechen honours bound, proposed in verse The characters of heroes and their deeds, To imitation, fang of Chaos old,
Of nature's birth, of gods that crept in search Of acorns fallen, and of the thunderbolt Not yet produced from Ætna's fiery cave. And what avails, at laft, tune without voice, Devoid of matter? Such may fuit perhaps The rural dance, but fuch was ne'er the fong Of Orpheus, whom the streams ftood ftill to hear, And the oaks follow'd. Not by chords alone Well touch'd, but by refiftless accents more To fympathetic tears the ghosts themselves He moved; these praises to his verse he owes.
Nor thou perfift, I pray thee, ftill to flight The facred Nine, and to imagine vain And useless Powers, by whom infpired, thyself Art fkilful to affociate verfe with airs Harmonious, and to give the human voice A thousand modulations, heir by right Indisputable of Arion's fame.
Now fay, what wonder is it, if a son Of thine delight in verse, if, so conjoin'd In close affinity, we sympathize
In focial arts and kindred ftudies sweet? Such diftribution of himself to us
Was Phoebus' choice; thou haft thy gift, and I Mine alfo, and between us we receive, Father and fon, the whole inspiring God.
No! how foe'er the semblance thou affume Of hate, thou hatest not the gentle Muse, My Father! for thou never badest me tread The beaten path, and broad, that leads right on To opulence, nor didft condemn thy fon To the infipid clamours of the bar, To laws voluminous, and ill obferved; But, wishing to enrich me more, to fill My mind with treasure, ledft me far away From city din to deep retreats, to banks And streams Aonian, and, with free confent, Didft place me happy at Apollo's fide. I speak not now, on more important themes Intent, of common benefits, and fuch As nature bids, but of thy larger gifts, My Father! who, when I had open'd once The ftores of Roman rhetoric, and learn'd
The full toned language of the eloquent Greeks, Whose lofty mufic graced the lips of Jove. Thyself didft counsel me to add the flowers That Gallia boasts, those too, with which the smooth
Italian his degenerate speech adorns,
That witneffes his mixture with the Goth; And Palestine's prophetic fongs divine.
To fum the whole, whate'er the heaven contains, The earth beneath it, and the air between, The rivers and the restless deep, may all Prove intellectual gain to me, my wish Concurring with thy will; fcience herself, All cloud removed, inclines her beauteous head, And offers me the lip, if, dull of heart, I shrink not, and decline her gracious boon.
Go now, and gather dross, ye fordid minds, That covet it; what could my Father more? What more could Jove himself, unless he gave His own abode, the heaven in which he reigns? More eligible gifts than these were not Apollo's to his fon, had they been safe As they were infecure, who made the boy The world's vice-luminary, bade him rule The radiant chariot of the day, and bind To his young brows his own all-dazzling wreath. I therefore, although laft and leaft, my place Among the learned in the laurel
Will hold, and where the conqueror's ivy twines, Henceforth exempt from the unletter'd throng Profane, nor even to be feen by fuch.
Away then, fleepless Care, Complaint, away, And, Envy, with thy "jealous leer malign!'
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