Enchanting shell!, the sullen Cares, And frantic Passions hear thy soft controul. And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command. Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye. 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 sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures, Frisking light in frolic measures; 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. 1. • 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! 4 Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body. * To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to mankind by the same Providence that sends the day by its cheerful presence to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night. The fond complaint, my song, disprove, Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse? Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring shafts of war, II. 2. 'In climes beyond the solar road, Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, To cheer the shivering native's dull abode. Of Chili's boundless forests laid, She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat In loose numbers wildly sweet Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves, Glory pursue, and generous Shame, Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame, II. 3. Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep, f Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations: its connexion with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. [See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welch Fragments, the Lapland and American songs.] & Progress of poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surry, and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there; Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them: but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since. How do your tuneful echoes languish, Ev'ry shade and hallow'd fountain Till the sad Nine in Greece's evil hour They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast. III. 1. Far from the sun and summer-gale, Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy! Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears. III. 2. Nor second he,' that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Extasy, The secrets of th' abyss to spy. He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time: Where angels tremble while they gaze, He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, i Milton. h Shakespear. Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car, Two coursers of ethereal race, With necks in thunder cloth'd and long-resounding pace. · III. 3. . Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. * But ah! 'tis heard no more— Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit Yet oft before his infant eyes would run Beneath the good how far-but far above the great. We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind, than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day: for Cowley (who had his merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason indeed of late days has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in some of his choruses-above all in the last of Caractacus, 1 Pindar. Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread? &c. ODE VI. THE BARD. PINDARIC.TM I. 1. < RUIN seize thee, ruthless King! Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing Helm, nor "hauberk's twisted mail, Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, To arms! cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quiv'ring lance. This Ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward the First, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into his hands to be put to death. "The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail, that sate close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion. • Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract, which the Welch themselves call Craigian-eryri: it included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the river Conway. R. Hygden, speaking of the castle of Conway, built by King Edward the First, says, "Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum montis Erery ;" and Matthew of Westminster, (ad ann. 1283,) " Apud Aberconway ad pedes montis Snowdoniæ fecit erigi castrum forte." P Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, sonin-law to King Edward. 9 Edmond de Mortimer, lord of Wigmore. They both were lords-marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and probably accompanied the King in this expedition. |