Book the Second

53

THE PROGRESS OF POESY

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,
Thro' 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.

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 curbed the fury of his car

And dropped his thirsty lance at thy command.
Perching on the sceptred hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feathered king
With ruffled plumes, and flagging wing:
Quenched in dark clouds of slumber lie

The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

Thee the voice, the dance, obey
Tempered to thy warbled lay.
O'er Idalia's velvet-green

The rosy-crownèd 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.

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,

i

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.

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 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 hallowed fountain
Murmured 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 strayed,

To him the mighty Mother did unveil

Her awful face: the dauntless child

Stretched 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 passed 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,

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! 'tis heard no more-

Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit

Wakes thee now? Tho' he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban Eagle bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion
Thro' 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, unborrowed 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.

Thomas Gray.

1

54

ALEXANDER'S FEAST

(Or, The Power of Music.)

'TWAS at the royal feast for Persia won

By Philip's warlike son

Aloft in awful state

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne;

His valiant peers were placed around,

Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound,

(So should desert in arms be crowned);

The lovely Thais by his side

Sate like a blooming Eastern bride

In flower of youth and beauty's pride:

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair!

Timotheus, placed on high

Amid the tuneful quire,

With flying fingers touched the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky
And heavenly joys inspire.

The song began from Jove,

Who left his blissful seats above-
Such is the power of mighty love!

A dragon's fiery form belied the god;
Sublime on radiant spires he rode
When he to fair Olympia prest,

And while he sought her snowy breast,

Then round her slender waist he curled

And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the world.