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And the breathings of her mouth
Shall unchain and gladden thee!*
Roamer in the hidden path,

'Neath the green and clouded wave.
Trampling, in thy reckless wrath,
On the lost, but cherish'd brave;
Parting love's death-link'd embrace-
Crushing beauty's skeleton-

Tell us what the hidden race

With our mourned lost have done!
Floating Sleep! who in the sun
Art an icy coronal;

And, beneath the viewless dun,
Throw'st o'er barks a wavy pall;
Shining Death upon the sea!

Wend thee to the southern main
Bend to God thy melting knee,
Mingle with the wave again!

ODES.

PROGRESS OF POESY.-Gray.

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,

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.
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 dropp'd 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:
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie

The terror of his beak, and light'nings 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;

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.

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.

Say, has he given in vain the heav'nly Muse?

Night, and all her sickly dews,

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 glittring 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 shiv'ring native's dull abode.
And oft, beneath the od'rous shade

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,
Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,

Glory pursue, and gen'rous Shame,

Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

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 ling'ring lab'rinths creep,

How do your tuneful echoes languish
Mute, but to the voice of Anguish!
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breath'd around;
Ev'ry shade and hallow'd fountain
Murmur'd deep a solemn sound:

Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,
Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.
Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power,
And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,

They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast.
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 smil'd.
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 Ecstacy,
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,
Clos'd his eyes in endless night.

Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car,
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear

Two coursers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding pace.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!

Bright-eyed Fancy, hovʼring o'er,
Scatters from her pictured urn

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

But ah! 'tis heard no more—

Oh! Lyre divine, what daring spirit
Wakes thee now? though he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban Eagle bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air:

Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray,

With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun :

Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way

Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

Beneath the Good how far-but far above the Great.

THE PASSIONS.-Collins.

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The passions oft to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possessed beyond the Muse's painting.
By turns, they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined :

Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for madness ruled the hour)
Would prove his own expressive power.
First, FEAR, his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid;
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
Even at the sound himself had made.
Next, ANGER rushed, his eyes on fire:
In lightnings owned his secret stings.
In one rude clash he struck the lyre-
And swept, with hurried hands, the strings.
With woful measures, wan DESPAIR-
Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air:
'Twas sad, by fits-by starts, 'twas wild.
But thou, O HOPE! with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure!
Still it whispered, promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail.

Still would her touch the strain prolong,
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all her song:
And where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft, responsive voice was heard at every close; And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair· And longer had she sung-but, with a frown,

REVENGE impatient rose.

He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down;
And, with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast, so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe:
And, ever and anon, he beat

The doubling drum, with furious heat;

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