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,

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' Aegean deep,

Fields that cool Ilissus laves

Or where Maeander's amber waves
In lingering lab'rinths 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.

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 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

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! 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, 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.

T. Gray

CXLI

THE PASSIONS

An Ode for Music

HEN Music, heavenly maid, was young,

W while yet in early Greece she sung,

The Passions oft, to hear her shell,

Throng'd around her magic cell

Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, raised, refined:
'Till once, 't is said, when all were fired,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd 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 bewilder'd laid,
And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire,
In lightnings own'd his secret stings;
In one rude clash he struck the lyre
And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woeful measures wan Despair-
Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled,
A solemn, strange, and mingled air,
'T was sad by fits, by starts 't was wild.

But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whisper'd 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 call'd on Echo still through all the 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-stain'd 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;

And, though sometimes, each dreary pause between, Dejected Pity at his side

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien,

While each strain'd ball of sight seem❜d bursting from his head.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd:
Sad proof of thy distressful state!

Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd;
And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate.

With eyes up-raised, as one inspired,

Pale Melancholy sat retired;

And from her wild sequester'd seat,

In notes by distance made more sweet,

Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul :
And dashing soft from rocks around

Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;

Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,