She welcomes to her breast her brother's beams,
Nor have the elements deserted yet
Their functions; thunder, with as loud a stroke
As erst, smites through the rocks, and scatters them
The east still howls, still the relentless north
Invades the shudd'ring Scythian, still he breathes
The winter, and still rolls the storms along.
'The king of ocean, with his wonted force,
Beats on Pelorus, o'er the deep is heard
The hoarse alarm of Triton's sounding shell,
Nor swim the monsters of the Egean sea
In shallows, or beneath diminish'd waves.
Thou too, thy ancient vegetative pow'r
Enjoy'st, O Earth! Narcissus still is sweet,
And Phœbus! still thy favourite, and still
Thy fav'rito Cytherea! both retain
Their beauty, nor the mountains, ore-enrich'd
For punishment of man. with purer gold
Teem'd ever, or with brighter gems the Deep
Thus, in unbroken series, all proceeds; And shall, till wide involving either pole, And the immensity of yonder heav'n, The final flames of destiny absorb
ne world consum'd in one enormous pyre 1
AS IT WAS UNDERSTOOD BY ARISTOTLE.
Ye sister pow'rs, who o'er the sacred groves
Preside, and thou, fair mother of them all,
Mnemosyne! and, thou, who in thy grot
Immense, reclin'd at leisure, hast in charge
The archives, and the ord'nances of Jove,
And dost record the festivals of heav'n,
Eternity inform us who is He,
That great original by nature chos'n
To be the archetype of human kind,
Unchangeable, immortal, with the poles
Themselves coeval, one, yet ev'ry where,
An image of the god, who gave him being?
Twin-brother of the goddess born from Jove.
He dwells not in his father's mind, but, though
Of common nature with ourselves, exists
Apart, and occupies a local home.
Whether, companion of the stars, he spend
Eternal ages, roaming at his will
From sphere to sphere the tenfold heav'ns, or dwell On the moon's side that nearest neighbours earth, Or torpid on the banks of Lethe sit
Among the multitude of souls ordain'd
To flesh and blood, or whether (as may chance)
That vast and giant model of our kind
In some far distant region of this globe
Sequester'd stalk, with lifted head on high
O'ertow'ring Atlas on whose shoulders rest
The stars, terrifick even to the gods.
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Never the Theban seer, whose blindness prov d His best illumination, him beheld
In secret vision; never him the son
Of Pleione, amid the noiseless night
Descending, to the prophet-choir reveal'd;
Him never knew th' Assyrian priest who yet
The ancestry of Ninus chronicles,
And Belus, and Osiris, far renown'd;
Nor even thrice great Hermes, although skill'd
So deep in myst'ry, to the worshippers
Of Isis show'd a prodigy like hin
And thou, who hast immortaliz'd the shades
Of Academus, if the schools receiv'd
This monster of the fancy first from thee,
Either recall at once the banish'd bards
To thy republick, or thyself evinc'd
A wilder fabulist, go also forth.
On that Pieria's spring would thro' my breast
Four its inspiring influence, and rush
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood!
That, for my venerable Father's sake,
All meaner themes renounc'd, my muse, on wings
Of duty borne, might reach a loffier strain.
For thee, my Father! howsoe'er it please,
She frames this slender work, nor know I aught,
That may thy gifts more suitably requite;
Though to requite them suitably would ask
Returns much nobler, and surpassing far
The meagre stores of verbal gratitude
But, such as I possess, I send thee all,
This page presents thee in their full amount
With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought,
Nought, save the riches that from airy dream
In secret grottos, and in laurel bow'rs,
I have, by goiden Clio's gift, acquir`d.
Verse is a work divine; despise not thou
Verse therefore, which evinces (nothing more)
Man's heavenly source, and which, retaining still
Some scintillations of Promethean fire,
Bespeaks him animated from above.
The Gods love verse; the infernal pow'rs themselves Confess the influence of verse, which stirs
The lowest deep, and binds in triple chains.
Of adamant both Plato and the Shades.
In verse the Delphick priestess, and the pale
Trenulous Sybil, make the future known,
And he who sacrifices on the shrine
Hangs verse, both when he smites the threat'ning bull And when he spreads his reeking entrails wide
To scrutinize the Fates envelop'd 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
Unutt'rable, immortal, hearing which
Huge Ophinchus holds his hiss suppress'd,
Orion soften'd, drops his ardent blade,
And Atlas stands unconscious of his load.
Verse grac'd of old the feasts of kings, ere yet
Luxurious dainties, destin'd to the gulf
Immense of gluttony, were known, and ere
Lyæus delug'd yet the temp'rate board.
Then sat the bard a customary 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, sang of Chaos old,
Of nature's birth, of gods that crept in search
Of acorns fall'n, and of the thunderbolt
Not yet produc'd from Etna's fiery cave.
And what avails, at last, tune without voice,
Devoid of matter? Such may suit perhaps
The rural dance, but such was ne'er the song
Of Orpheus, whom the streams stood still to hear
And the oaks follow'd. Not by chords alone
Well touch'd, but by resistless accents more,
To sympathetick tears the ghosts themselves
He mov'd; these praises to his verse he owes.
Nor thou persist, I pray thee, still to slight
The sacred Nine, and to imagine vain
And useless, pow'rs by whom inspir'd, thyself
Art skilful to associate verse with airs
Harmonious, and to give the human voice.
A thousand modulations, heir by right
Indisputable of Arion's fame.
Now say, what wonder is it, if a son
Of thine delight in verse, if so conjoin'd
In close affinity, we sympathize
In social arts, and kindred studies sweet?
Such distribution of himself to us
Was Phœbus' choice: thou hast thy gift, and I
Mine also, and between us we receive,
Father and Son, the whole inspiring God.
No! howsoc'er the semblance thou assume Of hate, thou hatest not the gentle Muse, My father for thou never ad'st me tread The beaten path, and broad, that lead'st right on
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