Their murmur shakes the Zephyr's wing ; Fierce Winter starts! his scowling eye To the deep vault the yelling Harpies run, Its yawning mouth receives th' infernal crew. Dim thro' the black gloom winks the glimmering sun, And the pale furnace gleams with brimstone blue. Hell howls and fiends that join the dire acclaim Dance on the bubbling tide, and point the livid flame. But ah! on sorrow's cypress bough Can Beauty breathe her genial bloom? There sleeps the Bard, whose tuneful tongue Young Spring, with lip of ruby, here Sweet Fancy pours the plaintive strain ; Or wrapt in soothing dream, By Avon's ruffled stream, Hears the low-murmuring gale that dies along the plain. ODE XXI. FOR MUSIC, PERFORMED AT THE THEATRE IN OXFORD, ON THE SECOND OF JULY, 1751, BEING THE ANNIVERSARY APPOINTED BY THE LATE LORD CREW, BISHOP OF DURHAM, For the Commemoration of Benefactors to the University, BY THE REV. T. WARTON, B.D. WHERE shall the Muse, that on the sacred shell O where shall Clio choose a race, All honor'd Albion, hail! Where'er thy commerce spreads the swelling sail, Ne'er shall she find a land like thee, So brave, so learned, and so free, All-honor'd Albion, hail! But in the princely land of all that's good and great, Along the sweetest shore That ever felt fair Culture's hands, Wisdom's immortal source ! Thee well her best belov'd may boasting Albion own, Whence each fair purpose of ingenuous praise, All that in thought or deed divine is deem'd, In one unbounded tide, one unremitted course, From age to age has still successive stream'd; Where Learning and where Liberty have nurst For those that in their ranks have shone the first, Their most luxuriant growth of ever-blooming bays. In ancient days, when she the queen enda'd As once, all glowing from the well-fought day, By chance, inviting with their glassy gleam, On the cool bank she bar'd her breast, Her accents Isis' calm attention caught, In ever-varying hues, as mimic fancy taught, With many a lovely look, That whisper'd soft consent: She smil'd, and gave the Goddess in her flood |