THE PROGRESS OF POESY. AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. A thousand rills their mazy progress take: The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar. And frantic passions hear thy soft control: Has curb'd the fury of his car, And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command: Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king The terror of his beak and lightning of his eye. Thee the voice, the dance, obey, Temper'd to thy warbled lay. O'er Idalia's velvet-green The rosy-crown'd Loves are seen On Cytherea's day, With antic sports and blue-eyed pleasures, Now in circling troops they meet: Slow melting strains their queen's approach declare: Man's feeble race what ills await, Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! The fond complaint, my song, disprove, And justify the laws of Jove. Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? Her spectres wan, her birds of boding cry, Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war, In climes beyond the solar road, Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, The Muse has broke the twilight gloom, To cheer the shivering native's dull abode. And oft, beneath the odorous shade Of Chili's boundless forests laid, She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, Their feather-cinctured chiefs and dusky loves. Glory pursue, and generous Shame, Th' unconquerable mind, and Freedom's holy flame, Woods that wave o'er Delphi's steep, Fields that cool Ilissus laves, Or where Mæander's amber waves How do your tuneful echoes languish, Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour, And coward Vice that revels in her chains. They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast. Far from the sun and summer-gale, To him the mighty mother did unveil Her awful face: The dauntless child "This pencil take," she said, "whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year: Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy! This can unlock the gates of Joy, Of Horror that, and thrilling fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears." Nor second he, that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, The secrets of th' abyss to spy. He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time : The living throne, the sapphire-blaze, Where angels tremble while they gaze, He saw but, blasted with excess of light, Closed his eyes in endless night. Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car Wide o'er the fields of glory bare Two coursers of ethereal race, With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace. Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Thoughts that breathe and words that burn. Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beneath the good how far, but far above the great. HYMN TO ADVERSITY. DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power, With pangs unfelt before, unpitied, and alone. When first thy sire to send on earth And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' wo. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, The summer friend, the flattering foe; By vain Prosperity received, To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. Wisdom, in sable garb array'd, 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, Nor circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen), With thundering voice and threatening mien, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty. Thy form benign, oh goddess, wear, To soften, not to wound my heart. The generous spark extinct revive, Exact my own defects to scan, What others are, to feel, and know myself a man. |