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And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old
In bearded majesty, appear.
In the midst a form divine !

Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line;
Her lion port, her awe-commanding face,
Attemper'd sweet to virgin grace.

What strings symphonious tremble in the air!
What strains of vocal transport round her play!
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
Bright Rapture calls, and, soaring as she sings,
Waves in the eye of heaven her many-colour'd wings.

"The verse adorn again

Fierce War, and faithful Love,

And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction dress'd.
In buskin'd measures * move

Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,

With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
A voice,t as of the cherub choir,

Gales from blooming Eden bear;

And distant warblings lessen on my ear,

That lost in long futurity expire.

Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Raised by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,

And warms the nations with redoubled ray.

Enough for me: with joy I see

The different doom our Fates assign.

Be thine Despair, and sceptred Care:

To triumph, and to die, are mine."

He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A PINDARIC ODE.

I.

AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake,

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs

A thousand rills their mazy progress take:

* Shakspeare.

+ Milton.

The succession of poets after Milton's time.

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, re-bellow to the roar.

O 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 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 Sport 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.

II.

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 heavenly 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 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,
In loose numbers wildly sweet,

Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,

Glory pursue, and generous Shame,

The' unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame.

Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,

Isles, that crown the' Ægean deep,

Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,
Or where Mæander's amber waves
In lingering labyrinths creep;

How do your tuneful Echoes languish,
Mute but to the voice of Anguish!
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breathed around;
Every 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, O Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast.

III.

Far from the Sun and summer-gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's darling * laid,

* Shakspeare.

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!
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 the' 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 bear

Two coursers of ethereal race, t

With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!

Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er,

Scatters from her pictured urn

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

But ah! 't is heard no more

O! lyre divine, what daring spirit

Wakes thee now? Though he inherit

Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,

That the Theban eagle bare,
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.

* Milton.

+ Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes.

SELECTIONS FROM COWPER.

THE WINTER EVENING.

HARK! 't is the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the Moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright.
He comes, the herald of a noisy world,

With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks,
News from all nations lumbering at his back.
True to his charge, the close-pack'd load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destined inn;

And, having dropp'd the' expected bag, pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
Cold, and yet cheerful! messenger of grief,
Perhaps, to thousands, and of joy to some;
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet
With tears, that trickled down the writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,

Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains,
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect

His horse and him, unconscious of them all.
But O the important budget! Usher'd in
With such heart-shaking music, who can say
What are its tidings? Have our troops awaked?
Or do they still, as if with opium drugg'd,
Snore to the murmurs of the' Atlantic wave?
Is India free? and does she wear her plumed
And jewell'd turban with a smile of peace,
Or do we grind her still? The grand debate,
The popular harangue, the tart reply,
The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit,
And the loud laugh ;-I long to know them all;
I burn to set the' imprison'd wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each,

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