Still on thy solemn steps attend: Warm Charity, the general friend, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing teas Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head, Dread Goddess, lay thy chast'ning hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Nor circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen) With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning 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. V. THE PROGRESS OF POESY. Pindaric. Φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν· ἐς Δὲ Χατίζει τὸ πᾶν, ἑρμηνέων. Pindar, Olymp. II. I. 1. AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. Now the rich stream of music winds along Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong, Through 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 roar. I. 2. Oh! Sov'reign 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, * When the author first published this and the following Ode, he was advised, even by his friends, to subjoin some few explanatory notes; but had too much respect for the understanding of his readers to take that liberty. + The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The various sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all it touches, are here described, its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of number; and its more rapid and irresistible course, when swoln and hurried away by the conflict of tunnituous passions ‡ Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar. The 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. 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 seen, On Cytherea's day, With antic Sport, and blue-eyed Pjeasures, Frisking light in frolic measures; Now pursuing, now retreating, Now in circling troops they meet: To brisk notes in cadence beating 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! The fond complaint, my song, disprove, And justify the laws of Jove. 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 i cheerful presence to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night. Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse? Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, He gives to range the dreary sky: Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering 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 duil abode. And oft, beneath the odʼrous shade Of Chili's boundless forests laid, She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat In loose numbers wildly sweet Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves. Her track, where'er the Goddess roves, Glory pursue, and generous Shame, Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame. II. 3. +Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep, Isles, that crown th' Ægean deep, Fields, that cool Ilissus laves, Or where Mæander's amber waves In lingering lab'rinths creep, * Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations: its connexion with hberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it.-(Sce the Erse, Norwegian, and Welsh Fragments; the Lapland and American Songs.) + Progress of poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to Eng. land. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste bere; Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them; but this school exp red soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French modei, which has subsisted ever since. Where each old poetic Mountain Murmur'd deep a hollow sound: Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains. And coward Vice, that revels in her chains, When Latium had her lofty spirit lost, They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea encircled coast. III. 1. Far from the sun and summer-gale, In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid, What time, where lucid Avon stray'd, To him the mighty mother did unveil Her awful face: the dauntless child Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smiled. This pencil take,' she said, whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year: Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy! Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears. Or ope the sacred source of sympatnetic Tears.' III. 2. 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 space and time: Where angels tremble, while they gaze, #Shakspeare. † Milton, |