4 O fountain of the golden day!

Could mortal vows but urge thy speed,

How soon before thy vernal ray

Should each unkindly damp recede!

How soon each tempest hovering fly,

That now fermenting loads the sky,

Prompt on our heads to burst amain,

To rend the forest from the steep,

And thundering o'er the Baltic deep,

To whelm the merchant's hopes of gain!

5 But let not man's imperfect views

Presume to tax wise Nature's laws;

'Tis his with silent joy to use

Th' indulgence of the Sovereign Cause;

Secure that from the whole of things

Beauty and good consummate springs,

Beyond what he can reach to know;

And that the providence of Heaven

Has some peculiar blessing given

To each allotted state below.

6 Even now how sweet the wintry night

Spent with the old illustrious dead!

While, by the taper's trembling light,

I seem those awful courts to tread,

Where chiefs and legislators lie,

Whose triumphs move before my eye,

With every laurel fresh display'd;

While charm'd I rove in classic song,

Or bend to freedom's fearless tongue,

Or walk the academic shade.

ODE III.

TO A FRIEND, UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOVE.

1 Indeed, my Phædria, if to find

That wealth can female wishes gain,

Had e'er disturb'd your thoughtful mind,

Or caused one serious moment's pain,

I should have said that all the rules

You learn'd of moralists and schools

Were very useless, very vain.

2 Yet I perhaps mistake the case--

Say, though with this heroic air,

Like one that holds a nobler chase,

You try the tender loss to bear,

Does not your heart renounce your tongue?

Seems not my censure strangely wrong

To count it such a slight affair?

3 When Hesper gilds the shaded sky,

Oft as you seek the well-known grove,

Methinks I see you cast your eye

Back to the morning scenes of love:

Each pleasing word you heard her say,

Her gentle look, her graceful way,

Again your struggling fancy move.

4 Then tell me, is your soul entire?

Does Wisdom calmly hold her throne?

Then can you question each desire,

Bid this remain, and that be gone?

No tear half-starting from your eye?

No kindling blush, you know not why?

No stealing sigh, nor stifled groan?

5 Away with this unmanly mood!

See where the hoary churl appears,

Whose hand hath seized the favourite good

Which you reserved for happier years:

While, side by side, the blushing maid

Shrinks from his visage, half afraid,

Spite of the sickly joy she wears.

6 Ye guardian powers of love and fame,

This chaste, harmonious pair behold;

And thus reward the generous flame

Of all who barter vows for gold.

O bloom of youth, O tender charms

Well-buried in a dotard's arms!

O equal price of beauty sold!

7 Cease then to gaze with looks of love:

Bid her adieu, the venal fair:

Unworthy she your bliss to prove;

Then wherefore should she prove your care?

No: lay your myrtle garland down;

And let a while the willow's crown

With luckier omens bind your hair.

8 O just escaped the faithless main,

Though driven unwilling on the land;

To guide your favour'd steps again,

Behold your better Genius stand:

Where Truth revolves her page divine,

Where Virtue leads to Honour's shrine,

Behold, he lifts his awful hand.

9 Fix but on these your ruling aim,

And Time, the sire of manly care,

Will fancy's dazzling colours tame;

A soberer dress will beauty wear:

Then shall esteem, by knowledge led,

Enthrone within your heart and head

Some happier love, some truer fair.

ODE IV.

AFFECTED INDIFFERENCE. TO THE SAME.

1 Yes: you contemn the perjured maid

Who all your favourite hopes betray'd:

Nor, though her heart should home return,

Her tuneful tongue its falsehood mourn,

Her winning eyes your faith implore,

Would you her hand receive again,

Or once dissemble your disdain,

Or listen to the siren's theme,

Or stoop to love: since now esteem

And confidence, and friendship, is no more.

2 Yet tell me, Phaedria, tell me why,

When, summoning your pride, you try

To meet her looks with cool neglect,

Or cross her walk with slight respect

(For so is falsehood best repaid),

Whence do your cheeks indignant glow?

Why is your struggling tongue so slow?

What means that darkness on your brow,

As if with all her broken vow

You meant the fair apostate to upbraid?

ODE V.

AGAINST SUSPICION.

1 Oh, fly! 'tis dire Suspicion's mien;

And, meditating plagues unseen,

The sorceress hither bends:

Behold her touch in gall imbrued:

Behold--her garment drops with blood

Of lovers and of friends.

2 Fly far! Already in your eyes

I see a pale suffusion rise;

And soon through every vein,

Soon will her secret venom spread,

And all your heart and all your head

Imbibe the potent stain.

3 Then many a demon will she raise

To vex your sleep, to haunt your ways;

While gleams of lost delight

Raise the dark tempest of the brain,

As lightning shines across the main

Through whirlwinds and through night.

4 No more can faith or candour move;

But each ingenuous deed of love,

Which reason would applaud,

Now, smiling o'er her dark distress,

Fancy malignant strives to dress

Like injury and fraud.

5 Farewell to virtue's peaceful times:

Soon will you stoop to act the crimes

Which thus you stoop to fear:

Guilt follows guilt; and where the train

Begins with wrongs of such attain,

What horrors form the rear!

6 'Tis thus to work her baleful power,

Suspicion waits the sullen hour

Of fretfulness and strife,

When care the infirmer bosom wrings,

Or Eurus waves his murky wings

To damp the seats of life.

7 But come, forsake the scene unbless'd,

Which first beheld your faithful breast

To groundless fears a prey:

Come where, with my prevailing lyre,

The skies, the streams, the groves conspire

To charm your doubts away.

8 Throned in the sun's descending car,

What power unseen diffuseth far

This tenderness of mind?

What Genius smiles on yonder flood?

What God, in whispers from the wood,

Bids every thought be kind?

9 O Thou, whate'er thy awful name,

Whose wisdom our untoward frame

With social love restrains;

Thou, who by fair affection's ties

Giv'st us to double all our joys,

And half disarm our pains;

10 If far from Dyson and from me

Suspicion took, by thy decree,

Her everlasting flight;

If firm on virtue's ample base

Thy parent hand has deign'd to raise

Our friendship's honour'd height;

11 Let universal candour still,

Clear as yon heaven-reflecting rill,

Preserve my open mind;

Nor this nor that man's crooked ways

One sordid doubt within me raise

To injure human kind.

ODE VI.

HYMN TO CHEERFULNESS.

How thick the shades of evening close!

How pale the sky with weight of snows!

Haste, light the tapers, urge the fire,

And bid the joyless day retire.--

Alas, in vain I try within

To brighten the dejected scene,

While, roused by grief, these fiery pains

Tear the frail texture of my veins;

While Winter's voice, that storms around,

And yon deep death-bell's groaning sound 10

Renew my mind's oppressive gloom,

Till starting Horror shakes the room.

Is there in nature no kind power

To soothe affliction's lonely hour?

To blunt the edge of dire disease,

And teach these wintry shades to please?

Come, Cheerfulness, triumphant fair,

Shine through the hovering cloud of care:

O sweet of language, mild of mien,

O Virtue's friend and Pleasure's queen, 20

Assuage the flames that burn my breast,

Compose my jarring thoughts to rest;

And while thy gracious gifts I feel,

My song shall all thy praise reveal.

As once ('twas in Astræa's reign)

The vernal powers renew'd their train,

It happen'd that immortal Love

Was ranging through the spheres above,

And downward hither cast his eye

The year's returning pomp to spy. 30

He saw the radiant god of day

Waft in his car the rosy May;

The fragrant Airs and genial Hours

Were shedding round him dews and flowers;

Before his wheels Aurora pass'd,

And Hesper's golden lamp was last.

But, fairest of the blooming throng,

When Health majestic moved along,

Delighted to survey below

The joys which from her presence flow, 40

While earth enliven'd hears her voice,

And swains, and flocks, and fields rejoice;

Then mighty Love her charms confess'd,

And soon his vows inclined her breast,

And, known from that auspicious morn,

The pleasing Cheerfulness was born.

Thou, Cheerfulness, by heaven design'd

To sway the movements of the mind,

Whatever fretful passion springs,

Whatever wayward fortune brings 50

To disarrange the power within,

And strain the musical machine;

Thou Goddess, thy attempering hand

Doth each discordant string command,

Refines the soft, and swells the strong;

And, joining Nature's general song,

Through many a varying tone unfolds

The harmony of human souls.

Fair guardian of domestic life, 59

Kind banisher of homebred strife,

Nor sullen lip, nor taunting eye

Deforms the scene where thou art by:

No sickening husband damns the hour

Which bound his joys to female power;

No pining mother weeps the cares

Which parents waste on thankless heirs:

The officious daughters pleased attend;

The brother adds the name of friend:

By thee with flowers their board is crown'd,

With songs from thee their walks resound; 70

And morn with welcome lustre shines,

And evening unperceived declines.

Is there a youth whose anxious heart

Labours with love's unpitied smart?

Though now he stray by rills and bowers,

And weeping waste the lonely hours,

Or if the nymph her audience deign,

Debase the story of his pain

With slavish looks, discolour'd eyes,

And accents faltering into sighs; 80

Yet thou, auspicious power, with ease

Canst yield him happier arts to please,

Inform his mien with manlier charms,

Instruct his tongue with nobler arms,

With more commanding passion move,

And teach the dignity of love.

Friend to the Muse and all her train,

For thee I court the Muse again:

The Muse for thee may well exert

Her pomp, her charms, her fondest art, 90

Who owes to thee that pleasing sway

Which earth and peopled heaven obey.

Let Melancholy's plaintive tongue

Repeat what later bards have sung;

But thine was Homer's ancient might,

And thine victorious Pindar's flight:

Thy hand each Lesbian wreath attired:

Thy lip Sicilian reeds inspired:

Thy spirit lent the glad perfume

Whence yet the flowers of Teos bloom; 100

Whence yet from Tibur's Sabine vale

Delicious blows the enlivening gale,

While Horace calls thy sportive choir,

Heroes and nymphs, around his lyre.

But see, where yonder pensive sage

(A prey perhaps to fortune's rage,

Perhaps by tender griefs oppress'd,

Or glooms congenial to his breast)

Retires in desert scenes to dwell,

And bids the joyless world farewell. 110

Alone he treads the autumnal shade,

Alone beneath the mountain laid

He sees the nightly damps ascend,

And gathering storms aloft impend;

He hears the neighbouring surges roll,

And raging thunders shake the pole;

Then, struck by every object round,

And stunn'd by every horrid sound,

He asks a clue for Nature's ways;

But evil haunts him through the maze: 120

He sees ten thousand demons rise

To wield the empire of the skies,

And Chance and Fate assume the rod,

And Malice blot the throne of God.--

O thou, whose pleasing power I sing,

Thy lenient influence hither bring;

Compose the storm, dispel the gloom,

Till Nature wear her wonted bloom,

Till fields and shades their sweets exhale,

And music swell each opening gale: 130

Then o'er his breast thy softness pour,

And let him learn the timely hour

To trace the world's benignant laws,

And judge of that presiding cause

Who founds on discord beauty's reign,

Converts to pleasure every pain,

Subdues each hostile form to rest,

And bids the universe be bless'd.

O thou, whose pleasing power I sing,

If right I touch the votive string, 140

If equal praise I yield thy name,

Still govern thou thy poet's flame;

Still with the Muse my bosom share,

And soothe to peace intruding care.

But most exert thy pleasing power

On friendship's consecrated hour;

And while my Sophron points the road

To godlike wisdom's calm abode,

Or warm in freedom's ancient cause

Traceth the source of Albion's laws, 150

Add thou o'er all the generous toil

The light of thy unclouded smile.

But if, by fortune's stubborn sway

From him and friendship torn away,

I court the Muse's healing spell

For griefs that still with absence dwell,

Do thou conduct my fancy's dreams

To such indulgent placid themes,

As just the struggling breast may cheer,

And just suspend the starting tear, 160

Yet leave that sacred sense of woe

Which none but friends and lovers know.

ODE VII.

ON THE USE OF POETRY.

1 Not for themselves did human kind

Contrive the parts by heaven assign'd

On life's wide scene to play:

Not Scipio's force nor Caesar's skill

Can conquer Glory's arduous hill,

If Fortune close the way.

2 Yet still the self-depending soul,

Though last and least in Fortune's roll,

His proper sphere commands;

And knows what Nature's seal bestow'd,

And sees, before the throne of God,

The rank in which he stands.

3 Who train'd by laws the future age,

Who rescued nations from the rage

Of partial, factious power,

My heart with distant homage views;

Content, if thou, celestial Muse,

Didst rule my natal hour.

4 Not far beneath the hero's feet,

Nor from the legislator's seat

Stands far remote the bard.

Though not with public terrors crown'd.

Yet wider shall his rule be found,

More lasting his award.

5 Lycurgus fashion'd Sparta's fame,

And Pompey to the Roman name

Gave universal sway:

Where are they?--Homer's reverend page

Holds empire to the thirtieth age,

And tongues and climes obey.

6 And thus when William's acts divine

No longer shall from Bourbon's line

Draw one vindictive vow;

When Sydney shall with Cato rest,

And Russel move the patriot's breast

No more than Brutus now;

7 Yet then shall Shakspeare's powerful art

O'er every passion, every heart,

Confirm his awful throne:

Tyrants shall bow before his laws;

And Freedom's, Glory's, Virtue's cause,

Their dread assertor own.

ODE VIII.

ON LEAVING HOLLAND.

I.--1.

Farewell to Leyden's lonely bound.

The Belgian Muse's sober seat;

Where, dealing frugal gifts around

To all the favourites at her feet,

She trains the body's bulky frame

For passive persevering toils;

And lest, from any prouder aim,

The daring mind should scorn her homely spoils,

She breathes maternal fogs to damp its restless flame.

I.--2.

Farewell the grave, pacific air,

Where never mountain zephyr blew:

The marshy levels lank and bare,

Which Pan, which Ceres never knew:

The Naiads, with obscene attire,

Urging in vain their urns to flow;

While round them chant the croaking choir,

And haply soothe some lover's prudent woe,

Or prompt some restive bard and modulate his lyre.

I.--3.

Farewell, ye nymphs, whom sober care of gain

Snatch'd in your cradles from the god of Love:

She render'd all his boasted arrows vain;

And all his gifts did he in spite remove.

Ye too, the slow-eyed fathers of the land,

With whom dominion steals from hand to hand,

Unown'd, undignified by public choice,

I go where Liberty to all is known,

And tells a monarch on his throne,

He reigns not but by her preserving voice.

II.--1

O my loved England, when with thee

Shall I sit down, to part no more?

Far from this pale, discolour'd sea,

That sleeps upon the reedy shore:

When shall I plough thy azure tide?

When on thy hills the flocks admire,

Like mountain snows; till down their side

I trace the village and the sacred spire,

While bowers and copses green the golden slope divide?

II.--2.

Ye nymphs who guard the pathless grove,

Ye blue-eyed sisters of the streams,

With whom I wont at morn to rove,

With whom at noon I talk'd in dreams;

Oh! take me to your haunts again,

The rocky spring, the greenwood glade;

To guide my lonely footsteps deign,

To prompt my slumbers in the murmuring shade,

And soothe my vacant ear with many an airy strain.

II.--3.

And thou, my faithful harp, no longer mourn

Thy drooping master's inauspicious hand:

Now brighter skies and fresher gales return,

Now fairer maids thy melody demand.

Daughters of Albion, listen to my lyre!

O Phoebus, guardian of the Aonian choir,

Why sounds not mine harmonious as thy own,

When all the virgin deities above

With Venus and with Juno move

In concert round the Olympian father's throne?

III.--1.

Thee too, protectress of my lays,

Elate with whose majestic call

Above degenerate Latium's praise,

Above the slavish boast of Gaul,

I dare from impious thrones reclaim,

And wanton sloth's ignoble charms,

The honours of a poet's name

To Somers' counsels, or to Hampden's arms,

Thee, Freedom, I rejoin, and bless thy genuine flame.

III.--2.

Great citizen of Albion! Thee

Heroic Valour still attends,

And useful Science, pleased to see

How Art her studious toil extends:

While Truth, diffusing from on high

A lustre unconfined as day,

Fills and commands the public eye;

Till, pierced and sinking by her powerful ray,

Tame Faith and monkish Awe, like nightly demons, fly.

III.--3.

Hence the whole land the patriot's ardour shares:

Hence dread Religion dwells with social Joy;

And holy passions and unsullied cares,

In youth, in age, domestic life employ.

O fair Britannia, hail!--With partial love

The tribes of men their native seats approve,

Unjust and hostile to each foreign fame:

But when for generous minds and manly laws

A nation holds her prime applause,

There public zeal shall all reproof disclaim.

ODE IX.

TO CURIO. [1] 1744.

1 Thrice hath the spring beheld thy faded fame

Since I exulting grasp'd the tuneful shell:

Eager through endless years to sound thy name,

Proud that my memory with thine should dwell.

How hast thou stain'd the splendour of my choice!

Those godlike forms which hover'd round thy voice,

Laws, freedom, glory, whither are they flown?

What can I now of thee to Time report,

Save thy fond country made thy impious sport,

Her fortune and her hope the victims of thy own?

2 There are, with eyes unmoved and reckless heart

Who saw thee from thy summit fall thus low,

Who deem'd thy arm extended but to dart

The public vengeance on thy private foe.

But, spite of every gloss of envious minds,

The owl-eyed race whom virtue's lustre blinds,

Who sagely prove that each man hath his price,

I still believed thy aim from blemish free,

I yet, even yet, believe it, spite of thee,

And all thy painted pleas to greatness and to vice.

3 'Thou didst not dream of liberty decay'd,

Nor wish to make her guardian laws more strong:

But the rash many, first by thee misled,

Bore thee at length unwillingly along.'

Rise from your sad abodes, ye cursed of old

For faith deserted or for cities sold,

Own here one untried, unexampled, deed;

One mystery of shame from Curio learn,

To beg the infamy he did not earn,

And scape in Guilt's disguise from Virtue's offer'd meed.

4 For saw we not that dangerous power avow'd

Whom Freedom oft hath found her mortal bane,

Whom public Wisdom ever strove to exclude,

And but with blushes suffereth in her train?

Corruption vaunted her bewitching spoils,

O'er court, o'er senate, spread in pomp her toils,

And call'd herself the state's directing soul:

Till Curio, like a good magician, tried

With Eloquence and Reason at his side,

By strength of holier spells the enchantress to control.

5 Soon with thy country's hope thy fame extends:

The rescued merchant oft thy words resounds:

Thee and thy cause the rural hearth defends:

His bowl to thee the grateful sailor crowns:

The learn'd recluse, with awful zeal who read

Of Grecian heroes, Roman patriots dead,

Now with like awe doth living merit scan:

While he, whom virtue in his bless'd retreat

Bade social ease and public passions meet,

Ascends the civil scene, and knows to be a man.

6 At length in view the glorious end appear'd:

We saw thy spirit through the senate reign;

And Freedom's friends thy instant omen heard

Of laws for which their fathers bled in vain.

Waked in the strife the public Genius rose

More keen, more ardent from his long repose;

Deep through her bounds the city felt his call;

Each crowded haunt was stirr'd beneath his power,

And murmuring challenged the deciding hour

Or that too vast event, the hope and dread of all.

7 O ye good powers who look on human kind,

Instruct the mighty moments as they roll;

And watch the fleeting shapes in Curio's mind,

And steer his passions steady to the goal.

O Alfred, father of the English name,

O valiant Edward, first in civil fame,

O William, height of public virtue pure,

Bend from your radiant seats a joyful eye,

Behold the sum of all your labours nigh,

Your plans of law complete, your ends of rule secure.

8 'Twas then--O shame! O soul from faith estranged!

O Albion, oft to flattering vows a prey!

'Twas then--Thy thought what sudden frenzy changed?

What rushing palsy took thy strength away?

Is this the man in Freedom's cause approved--

The man so great, so honour'd, so beloved--

Whom the dead envied and the living bless'd--

This patient slave by tinsel bonds allured--

This wretched suitor for a boon abjured--

Whom those that fear'd him scorn; that trusted him, detest?

9 O lost alike to action and repose!

With all that habit of familiar fame,

Sold to the mockery of relentless foes,

And doom'd to exhaust the dregs of life in shame,

To act with burning brow and throbbing heart

A poor deserter's dull exploded part,

To slight the favour thou canst hope no more,

Renounce the giddy crowd, the vulgar wind,

Charge thy own lightness on thy country's mind,

And from her voice appeal to each tame foreign shore.

10 But England's sons, to purchase thence applause,

Shall ne'er the loyalty of slaves pretend,

By courtly passions try the public cause;

Nor to the forms of rule betray the end.

O race erect! by manliest passions moved,

The labours which to Virtue stand approved,

Prompt with a lover's fondness to survey;

Yet, where Injustice works her wilful claim,

Fierce as the flight of Jove's destroying flame,

Impatient to confront, and dreadful to repay.

11 These thy heart owns no longer. In their room

See the grave queen of pageants, Honour, dwell

Couch'd in thy bosom's deep tempestuous gloom,

Like some grim idol in a sorcerer's cell.

Before her rites thy sickening reason flew,

Divine Persuasion from thy tongue withdrew,

While Laughter mock'd, or Pity stole a sigh:

Can Wit her tender movements rightly frame

Where the prime function of the soul is lame?

Can Fancy's feeble springs the force of Truth supply?

12 But come: 'tis time: strong Destiny impends

To shut thee from the joys thou hast betray'd:

With princes fill'd, the solemn fane ascends,

By Infamy, the mindful demon sway'd.

There vengeful vows for guardian laws effaced,

From nations fetter'd, and from towns laid waste,

For ever through the spacious courts resound:

There long posterity's united groan,

And the sad charge of horrors not their own,

Assail the giant chiefs, and press them to the ground.

13 In sight, old Time, imperious judge, awaits:

Above revenge, or fear, or pity, just,

He urgeth onward to those guilty gates

The great, the sage, the happy, and august.

And still he asks them of the hidden plan

Whence every treaty, every war began,

Evolves their secrets and their guilt proclaims:

And still his hands despoil them on the road

Of each vain wreath by lying bards bestow'd,

And crush their trophies huge, and raze their sculptured names.

14 Ye mighty shades, arise, give place, attend:

Here his eternal mansion Curio seeks.

Low doth proud Wentworth to the stranger bend,

And his dire welcome hardy Clifford speaks:--

'He comes, whom fate with surer arts prepared

To accomplish all which we but vainly dared;

Whom o'er the stubborn herd she taught to reign:

Who soothed with gaudy dreams their raging power

Even to its last irrevocable hour;

Then baffled their rude strength, and broke them to the chain.'

15 But ye, whom yet wise Liberty inspires,

Whom for her champions o'er the world she claims

(That household godhead whom of old your sires

Sought in the woods of Elbe and bore to Thames),

Drive ye this hostile omen far away;

Their own fell efforts on her foes repay;

Your wealth, your arts, your fame, be hers alone:

Still gird your swords to combat on her side;

Still frame your laws her generous test to abide;

And win to her defence the altar and the throne.

16 Protect her from yourselves, ere yet the flood

Of golden Luxury, which Commerce pours,

Hath spread that selfish fierceness through your blood,

Which not her lightest discipline endures:

Snatch from fantastic demagogues her cause:

Dream not of Numa's manners, Plato's laws:

A wiser founder, and a nobler plan,

O sons of Alfred, were for you assign'd:

Bring to that birthright but an equal mind,

And no sublimer lot will fate reserve for man.

[Footnote 1: 'To Curio:' see _Life_.]

ODE X.

TO THE MUSE.

1 Queen of my songs, harmonious maid,

Ah! why hast thou withdrawn thy aid?

Ah! why forsaken thus my breast

With inauspicious damps oppress'd?

Where is the dread prophetic heat

With which my bosom wont to beat?

Where all the bright mysterious dreams

Of haunted groves and tuneful streams,

That woo'd my genius to divinest themes?

2 Say, goddess, can the festal board,

Or young Olympia's form adored;

Say, can the pomp of promised fame

Relume thy faint, thy dying flame?

Or have melodious airs the power

To give one free, poetic hour?

Or, from amid the Elysian train,

The soul of Milton shall I gain,

To win thee back with some celestial strain?

3 O powerful strain! O sacred soul!

His numbers every sense control:

And now again my bosom burns;

The Muse, the Muse herself returns.

Such on the banks of Tyne, confess'd,

I hail'd the fair immortal guest,

When first she seal'd me for her own,

Made all her blissful treasures known,

And bade me swear to follow Her alone.

ODE XI.

ON LOVE. TO A FRIEND.

1 No, foolish youth--to virtuous fame

If now thy early hopes be vow'd,

If true ambition's nobler flame

Command thy footsteps from the crowd,

Lean not to Love's enchanting snare;

His songs, his words, his looks beware,

Nor join his votaries, the young and fair.

2 By thought, by dangers, and by toils,

The wreath of just renown is worn;

Nor will ambition's awful spoils

The flowery pomp of ease adorn;

But Love unbends the force of thought;

By Love unmanly fears are taught;

And Love's reward with gaudy sloth is bought.

3 Yet thou hast read in tuneful lays,

And heard from many a zealous breast,

The pleasing tale of beauty's praise

In wisdom's lofty language dress'd;

Of beauty powerful to impart

Each finer sense, each comelier art,

And soothe and polish man's ungentle heart.

4 If then, from Love's deceit secure,

Thus far alone thy wishes tend,

Go; see the white-wing'd evening hour

On Delia's vernal walk descend:

Go, while the golden light serene,

The grove, the lawn, the soften'd scene

Becomes the presence of the rural queen.

5 Attend, while that harmonious tongue

Each bosom, each desire commands:

Apollo's lute by Hermes strung,

And touch'd by chaste Minerva's hands,

Attend. I feel a force divine,

O Delia, win my thoughts to thine;

That half the colour of thy life is mine.

6 Yet conscious of the dangerous charm,

Soon would I turn my steps away;

Nor oft provoke the lovely harm,

Nor lull my reason's watchful sway.

But thou, my friend--I hear thy sighs:

Alas, I read thy downcast eyes;

And thy tongue falters, and thy colour flies.

7 So soon again to meet the fair?

So pensive all this absent hour?--

O yet, unlucky youth, beware,

While yet to think is in thy power.

In vain with friendship's flattering name

Thy passion veils its inward shame;

Friendship, the treacherous fuel of thy flame!

8 Once, I remember, new to Love,

And dreading his tyrannic chain,

I sought a gentle maid to prove

What peaceful joys in friendship reign:

Whence we forsooth might safely stand,

And pitying view the love-sick band,

And mock the wingèd boy's malicious hand.

9 Thus frequent pass'd the cloudless day,

To smiles and sweet discourse resign'd;

While I exulted to survey

One generous woman's real mind:

Till friendship soon my languid breast

Each night with unknown cares possess'd,

Dash'd my coy slumbers, or my dreams distress'd.

10 Fool that I was--And now, even now

While thus I preach the Stoic strain,

Unless I shun Olympia's view,

An hour unsays it all again.

O friend!--when Love directs her eyes

To pierce where every passion lies,

Where is the firm, the cautious, or the wise?

ODE XII.

TO SIR FRANCIS HENRY DRAKE, BARONET.

1 Behold, the Balance in the sky

Swift on the wintry scale inclines:

To earthy caves the Dryads fly,

And the bare pastures Pan resigns.

Late did the farmer's fork o'erspread

With recent soil the twice-mown mead,

Tainting the bloom which Autumn knows:

He whets the rusty coulter now,

He binds his oxen to the plough,

And wide his future harvest throws.

2 Now, London's busy confines round,

By Kensington's imperial towers,

From Highgate's rough descent profound,

Essexian heaths, or Kentish bowers,

Where'er I pass, I see approach

Some rural statesman's eager coach,

Hurried by senatorial cares:

While rural nymphs (alike, within,

Aspiring courtly praise to win)

Debate their dress, reform their airs.

3 Say, what can now the country boast,

O Drake, thy footsteps to detain,

When peevish winds and gloomy frost

The sunshine of the temper stain?

Say, are the priests of Devon grown

Friends to this tolerating throne,

Champions for George's legal right?

Have general freedom, equal law,

Won to the glory of Nassau

Each bold Wessexian squire and knight?

4 I doubt it much; and guess at least

That when the day, which made us free,

Shall next return, that sacred feast

Thou better may'st observe with me.

With me the sulphurous treason old

A far inferior part shall hold

In that glad day's triumphal strain;

And generous William be revered,

Nor one untimely accent heard

Of James, or his ignoble reign.

5 Then, while the Gascon's fragrant wine

With modest cups our joy supplies,

We'll truly thank the power divine

Who bade the chief, the patriot rise;

Rise from heroic ease (the spoil

Due, for his youth's Herculean toil,

From Belgium to her saviour son),

Rise with the same unconquer'd zeal

For our Britannia's injured weal,

Her laws defaced, her shrines o'erthrown.

6 He came. The tyrant from our shore,

Like a forbidden demon, fled;

And to eternal exile bore

Pontific rage and vassal dread.

There sunk the mouldering Gothic reign:

New years came forth, a liberal train,

Call'd by the people's great decree.

That day, my friend, let blessings crown;--

Fill, to the demigod's renown

From whom thou hast that thou art free.

7 Then, Drake, (for wherefore should we part

The public and the private weal?)

In vows to her who sways thy heart,

Fair health, glad fortune, will we deal.

Whether Aglaia's blooming cheek,

Or the soft ornaments that speak

So eloquent in Daphne's smile,

Whether the piercing lights that fly

From the dark heaven of Myrto's eye,

Haply thy fancy then beguile.

8 For so it is:--thy stubborn breast,

Though touch'd by many a slighter wound,

Hath no full conquest yet confess'd,

Nor the one fatal charmer found;

While I, a true and loyal swain,

My fair Olympia's gentle reign

Through all the varying seasons own.

Her genius still my bosom warms:

No other maid for me hath charms,

Or I have eyes for her alone.

ODE XIII.

ON LYRIC POETRY.

I.--1.

Once more I join the Thespian choir,

And taste the inspiring fount again:

O parent of the Grecian lyre,

Admit me to thy powerful strain--

And lo, with ease my step invades

The pathless vale and opening shades,

Till now I spy her verdant seat;

And now at large I drink the sound,

While these her offspring, listening round.

By turns her melody repeat.

I.--2.

I see Anacreon smile and sing,

His silver tresses breathe perfume:

His cheek displays a second spring

Of roses, taught by wine to bloom.

Away, deceitful cares, away,

And let me listen to his lay;

Let me the wanton pomp enjoy,

While in smooth dance the light-wing'd Hours

Lead round his lyre its patron powers,

Kind Laughter and Convivial Joy.

I.--3.

Broke from the fetters of his native land,

Devoting shame and vengeance to her lords,

With louder impulse and a threatening hand

The Lesbian patriot [1] smites the sounding chords:

Ye wretches, ye perfidious train,

Ye cursed of gods and free-born men,

Ye murderers of the laws,

Though now ye glory in your lust,

Though now ye tread the feeble neck in dust,

Yet Time and righteous Jove will judge your dreadful cause.

II.--1.

But lo, to Sappho's melting airs

Descends the radiant queen of love:

She smiles, and asks what fonder cares

Her suppliant's plaintive measures move:

Why is my faithful maid distress'd?

Who, Sappho, wounds thy tender breast?

Say, flies he?--Soon he shall pursue:

Shuns he thy gifts?--He soon shall give:

Slights he thy sorrows?--He shall grieve,

And soon to all thy wishes bow.

II.--2.

But, O Melpomene, for whom

Awakes thy golden shell again?

What mortal breath shall e'er presume

To echo that unbounded strain?

Majestic in the frown of years,

Behold, the man of Thebes [2] appears:

For some there are, whose mighty frame

The hand of Jove at birth endow'd

With hopes that mock the gazing crowd;

As eagles drink the noontide flame;

II.--3.

While the dim raven beats her weary wings,

And clamours far below.--Propitious Muse,

While I so late unlock thy purer springs,

And breathe whate'er thy ancient airs infuse,

Wilt thou for Albion's sons around

(Ne'er hadst thou audience more renown'd)

Thy charming arts employ,

As when the winds from shore to shore

Through Greece thy lyre's persuasive language bore,

Till towns, and isles, and seas return'd the vocal joy?

III.--1.

Yet then did Pleasure's lawless throng,

Oft rushing forth in loose attire,

Thy virgin dance, thy graceful song

Pollute with impious revels dire.

O fair, O chaste, thy echoing shade

May no foul discord here invade:

Nor let thy strings one accent move,

Except what earth's untroubled ear

'Mid all her social tribes may hear,

And heaven's unerring throne approve.

III.--2.

Queen of the lyre, in thy retreat

The fairest flowers of Pindus glow;

The vine aspires to crown thy seat,

And myrtles round thy laurel grow.

Thy strings adapt their varied strain

To every pleasure, every pain,

Which mortal tribes were born to prove;

And straight our passions rise or fall,

As at the wind's imperious call

The ocean swells, the billows move.

III.--3.

When midnight listens o'er the slumbering earth,

Let me, O Muse, thy solemn whispers hear:

When morning sends her fragrant breezes forth,

With airy murmurs touch my opening ear.

And ever watchful at thy side,

Let Wisdom's awful suffrage guide

The tenor of thy lay:

To her of old by Jove was given

To judge the various deeds of earth and heaven;

'Twas thine by gentle arts to win us to her sway.

IV.--1.

Oft as, to well-earn'd ease resign'd,

I quit the maze where Science toils,

Do thou refresh my yielding mind

With all thy gay, delusive spoils.

But, O indulgent, come not nigh

The busy steps, the jealous eye

Of wealthy care or gainful age;

Whose barren souls thy joys disdain,

And hold as foes to reason's reign

Whome'er thy lovely works engage.

IV.--2.

When friendship and when letter'd mirth

Haply partake my simple board,

Then let thy blameless hand call forth

The music of the Teian chord.

Or if invoked at softer hours,

Oh! seek with me the happy bowers

That hear Olympia's gentle tongue;

To beauty link'd with virtue's train,

To love devoid of jealous pain,

There let the Sapphic lute be strung.

IV.--3.

But when from envy and from death to claim

A hero bleeding for his native land;

When to throw incense on the vestal flame

Of Liberty my genius gives command,

Nor Theban voice nor Lesbian lyre

From thee, O Muse, do I require;

While my presaging mind,

Conscious of powers she never knew,

Astonish'd, grasps at things beyond her view,

Nor by another's fate submits to be confined.

[Footnote 1: 'The Lesbian patriot:' Alcaeus.]

[Footnote 2: 'The man of Thebes:' Pindar.]

ODE XIV.

TO THE HONOURABLE CHARLES TOWNSHEND;

FROM THE COUNTRY.

1 Say, Townshend, what can London boast

To pay thee for the pleasures lost,

The health to-day resign'd,

When Spring from this her favourite seat

Bade Winter hasten his retreat,

And met the western wind.

2 Oh, knew'st thou how the balmy air,

The sun, the azure heavens prepare

To heal thy languid frame,

No more would noisy courts engage;

In vain would lying Faction's rage

Thy sacred leisure claim.

3 Oft I look'd forth, and oft admired;

Till with the studious volume tired

I sought the open day;

And sure, I cried, the rural gods

Expect me in their green abodes,

And chide my tardy lay.

4 But ah, in vain my restless feet

Traced every silent shady seat

Which knew their forms of old:

Nor Naiad by her fountain laid,

Nor Wood-nymph tripping through her glade,

Did now their rites unfold:

5 Whether to nurse some infant oak

They turn--the slowly tinkling brook,

And catch the pearly showers,

Or brush the mildew from the woods,

Or paint with noontide beams the buds,

Or breathe on opening flowers.

6 Such rites, which they with Spring renew,

The eyes of care can never view;

And care hath long been mine:

And hence offended with their guest,

Since grief of love my soul oppress'd,

They hide their toils divine.

7 But soon shall thy enlivening tongue

This heart, by dear affliction wrung,

With noble hope inspire:

Then will the sylvan powers again

Receive me in their genial train,

And listen to my lyre.

8 Beneath yon Dryad's lonely shade

A rustic altar shall be paid,

Of turf with laurel framed;

And thou the inscription wilt approve:

'This for the peace which, lost by love,

By friendship was reclaim'd'

ODE XV.

TO THE EVENING STAR.

1 To-night retired, the queen of heaven

With young Endymion stays:

And now to Hesper it is given

A while to rule the vacant sky,

Till she shall to her lamp supply

A stream of brighter rays.

2 O Hesper, while the starry throng

With awe thy path surrounds,

Oh, listen to my suppliant song,

If haply now the vocal sphere

Can suffer thy delighted ear

To stoop to mortal sounds.

3 So may the bridegroom's genial strain

Thee still invoke to shine:

So may the bride's unmarried train

To Hymen chant their flattering vow,

Still that his lucky torch may glow

With lustre pure as thine.

4 Far other vows must I prefer

To thy indulgent power.

Alas, but now I paid my tear

On fair Olympia's virgin tomb:

And lo, from thence, in quest I roam

Of Philomela's bower.

5 Propitious send thy golden ray,

Thou purest light above:

Let no false flame seduce to stray

Where gulf or steep lie hid for harm:

But lead where music's healing charm

May soothe afflicted love.

6 To them, by many a grateful song

In happier seasons vow'd,

These lawns, Olympia's haunt, belong:

Oft by yon silver stream we walk'd,

Or fix'd, while Philomela talk'd,

Beneath yon copses stood.

7 Nor seldom, where the beechen boughs

That roofless tower invade,

We came while her enchanting Muse

The radiant moon above us held:

Till by a clamorous owl compell'd

She fled the solemn shade.

8 But hark; I hear her liquid tone.

Now, Hesper, guide my feet

Down the red marl with moss o'ergrown,

Through yon wild thicket next the plain,

Whose hawthorns choke the winding lane,

Which leads to her retreat.

9 See the green space; on either hand

Enlarged it spreads around:

See, in the midst she takes her stand,

Where one old oak his awful shade

Extends o'er half the level mead

Enclosed in woods profound.

10 Hark, through many a melting note

She now prolongs her lays:

How sweetly down the void they float!

The breeze their magic path attends,

The stars shine out, the forest bends,

The wakeful heifers gaze.

11 Whoe'er thou art whom chance may bring

To this sequester'd spot,

If then the plaintive Syren sing,

Oh! softly tread beneath her bower,

And think of heaven's disposing power,

Of man's uncertain lot.

12 Oh! think, o'er all this mortal stage,

What mournful scenes arise:

What ruin waits on kingly rage,

How often virtue dwells with woe,

How many griefs from knowledge flow,

How swiftly pleasure flies.

13 O sacred bird, let me at eve,

Thus wandering all alone,

Thy tender counsel oft receive,

Bear witness to thy pensive airs,

And pity Nature's common cares,

Till I forget my own.

ODE XVI.

TO CALEB HARDINGE, M. D.

1 With sordid floods the wintry Urn [1]

Hath stain'd fair Richmond's level green;

Her naked hill the Dryads mourn,

No longer a poetic scene.

No longer there the raptured eye

The beauteous forms of earth or sky

Surveys as in their Author's mind;

And London shelters from the year

Those whom thy social hours to share

The Attic Muse design'd.

2 From Hampstead's airy summit me

Her guest the city shall behold,

What day the people's stern decree

To unbelieving kings is told,

When common men (the dread of fame)

Adjudged as one of evil name,

Before the sun, the anointed head.

Then seek thou too the pious town,

With no unworthy cares to crown

That evening's awful shade.

3 Deem not I call thee to deplore

The sacred martyr of the day,

By fast, and penitential lore

To purge our ancient guilt away.

For this, on humble faith I rest

That still our advocate, the priest,

From heavenly wrath will save the land;

Nor ask what rites our pardon gain,

Nor how his potent sounds restrain

The thunderer's lifted hand.

4 No, Hardinge; peace to church and state!

That evening, let the Muse give law;

While I anew the theme relate

Which my first youth enamour'd saw.

Then will I oft explore thy thought,

What to reject which Locke hath taught,

What to pursue in Virgil's lay;

Till hope ascends to loftiest things,

Nor envies demagogues or kings

Their frail and vulgar sway.

5 O versed in all the human frame,

Lead thou where'er my labour lies,

And English fancy's eager flame

To Grecian purity chastise;

While hand in hand, at Wisdom's shrine,

Beauty with truth I strive to join,

And grave assent with glad applause;

To paint the story of the soul,

And Plato's visions to control

By Verulamian laws.

[Footnote 1: 'The wintry Urn:' Aquarius.]

ODE XVII.

ON A SERMON AGAINST GLORY. 1747.

1 Come then, tell me, sage divine,

Is it an offence to own

That our bosoms e'er incline

Toward immortal Glory's throne?

For with me, nor pomp, nor pleasure,

Bourbon's might, Braganza's treasure,

So can Fancy's dream rejoice,

So conciliate Reason's choice,

As one approving word of her impartial voice.

2 If to spurn at noble praise

Be the passport to thy heaven,

Follow thou those gloomy ways;

No such law to me was given,

Nor, I trust, shall I deplore me,

Faring like my friends before me;

Nor an holier place desire

Than Timoleon's arms acquire,

And Tully's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre.

ODE XVIII.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE FRANCIS, EARL OF HUNTINGDON, 1747.

I.--1.

The wise and great of every clime,

Through all the spacious walks of time,

Where'er the Muse her power display'd,

With joy have listen'd and obey'd.

For, taught of heaven, the sacred Nine

Persuasive numbers, forms divine,

To mortal sense impart:

They best the soul with glory fire;

They noblest counsels, boldest deeds inspire;

And high o'er Fortune's rage enthrone the fixed heart.

I.--2.

Nor less prevailing is their charm

The vengeful bosom to disarm;

To melt the proud with human woe,

And prompt unwilling tears to flow.

Can wealth a power like this afford?

Can Cromwell's arts or Marlborough's sword,

An equal empire claim?

No, Hastings. Thou my words wilt own:

Thy breast the gifts of every Muse hath known;

Nor shall the giver's love disgrace thy noble name.

I.--3.

The Muse's awful art,

And the blest function of the poet's tongue,

Ne'er shalt thou blush to honour; to assert

From all that scorned vice or slavish fear hath sung.

Nor shall the blandishment of Tuscan strings

Warbling at will in Pleasure's myrtle bower;

Nor shall the servile notes to Celtic kings

By flattering minstrels paid in evil hour,

Move thee to spurn the heavenly Muse's reign.

A different strain,

And other themes

From her prophetic shades and hallow'd streams

(Thou well canst witness), meet the purgèd ear:

Such, as when Greece to her immortal shell

Rejoicing listen'd, godlike sounds to hear;

To hear the sweet instructress tell

(While men and heroes throng'd around)

How life its noblest use may find,

How well for freedom be resign'd;

And how, by glory, virtue shall be crown'd.

II.--1.

Such was the Chian father's strain

To many a kind domestic train,

Whose pious hearth and genial bowl

Had cheer'd the reverend pilgrim's soul:

When, every hospitable rite

With equal bounty to requite,

He struck his magic strings,

And pour'd spontaneous numbers forth,

And seized their ears with tales of ancient worth,

And fill'd their musing hearts with vast heroic things.

II.--2.

Now oft, where happy spirits dwell,

Where yet he tunes his charming shell,

Oft near him, with applauding hands,

The Genius of his country stands.

To listening gods he makes him known,

That man divine, by whom were sown

The seeds of Grecian fame:

Who first the race with freedom fired;

From whom Lycurgus Sparta's sons inspired;

From whom Plataean palms and Cyprian trophies came.

II.--3.

O noblest, happiest age!

When Aristides ruled, and Cimon fought;

When all the generous fruits of Homer's page

Exulting Pindar saw to full perfection brought.

O Pindar, oft shalt thou be hail'd of me:

Not that Apollo fed thee from his shrine;

Not that thy lips drank sweetness from the bee;

Nor yet that, studious of thy notes divine,

Pan danced their measure with the sylvan throng:

But that thy song

Was proud to unfold

What thy base rulers trembled to behold;

Amid corrupted Thebes was proud to tell

The deeds of Athens and the Persian shame:

Hence on thy head their impious vengeance fell.

But thou, O faithful to thy fame,

The Muse's law didst rightly know;

That who would animate his lays,

And other minds to virtue raise,

Must feel his own with all her spirit glow.

III.--1.

Are there, approved of later times,

Whose verse adorn'd a tyrant's [1] crimes?

Who saw majestic Rome betray'd,

And lent the imperial ruffian aid?

Alas! not one polluted bard,

No, not the strains that Mincius heard,

Or Tibur's hills replied,

Dare to the Muse's ear aspire;

Save that, instructed by the Grecian lyre,

With Freedom's ancient notes their shameful task they hide.

III.--2.

Mark, how the dread Pantheon stands,

Amid the domes of modern hands:

Amid the toys of idle state,

How simply, how severely great!

Then turn, and, while each western clime

Presents her tuneful sons to Time,

So mark thou Milton's name;

And add, 'Thus differs from the throng

The spirit which inform'd thy awful song,

Which bade thy potent voice protect thy country's fame.'

III.--3.

Yet hence barbaric zeal

His memory with unholy rage pursues;

While from these arduous cares of public weal

She bids each bard begone, and rest him with his Muse.

O fool! to think the man, whose ample mind

Must grasp at all that yonder stars survey;

Must join the noblest forms of every kind,

The world's most perfect image to display,

Can e'er his country's majesty behold,

Unmoved or cold!

O fool! to deem

That he, whose thought must visit every theme,

Whose heart must every strong emotion know

Inspired by Nature, or by Fortune taught;

That he, if haply some presumptuous foe,

With false ignoble science fraught,

Shall spurn at Freedom's faithful band:

That he their dear defence will shun,

Or hide their glories from the sun,

Or deal their vengeance with a woman's hand!

IV.--1.

I care not that in Arno's plain,

Or on the sportive banks of Seine,

From public themes the Muse's choir

Content with polish'd ease retire.

Where priests the studious head command,

Where tyrants bow the warlike hand

To vile ambition's aim,

Say, what can public themes afford,

Save venal honours to a hateful lord,

Reserved for angry heaven and scorn'd of honest fame?

IV.--2.

But here, where Freedom's equal throne

To all her valiant sons is known;

Where all are conscious of her cares,

And each the power, that rules him, shares;

Here let the bard, whose dastard tongue

Leaves public arguments unsung,

Bid public praise farewell:

Let him to fitter climes remove,

Far from the hero's and the patriot's love,

And lull mysterious monks to slumber in their cell.

IV.--3.

O Hastings, not to all

Can ruling Heaven the same endowments lend:

Yet still doth Nature to her offspring call,

That to one general weal their different powers they bend,

Unenvious. Thus alone, though strains divine

Inform the bosom of the Muse's son;

Though with new honours the patrician's line

Advance from age to age; yet thus alone

They win the suffrage of impartial fame.

The poet's name

He best shall prove,

Whose lays the soul with noblest passions move.

But thee, O progeny of heroes old,

Thee to severer toils thy fate requires:

The fate which form'd thee in a chosen mould,

The grateful country of thy sires,

Thee to sublimer paths demand;

Sublimer than thy sires could trace,

Or thy own Edward teach his race,

Though Gaul's proud genius sank beneath his hand.

V.--1.

From rich domains, and subject farms,

They led the rustic youth to arms;

And kings their stern achievements fear'd,

While private strife their banners rear'd.

But loftier scenes to thee are shown,

Where empire's wide establish'd throne

No private master fills:

Where, long foretold, the People reigns;

Where each a vassal's humble heart disdains;

And judgeth what he sees; and, as he judgeth, wills.

V.--2.

Here be it thine to calm and guide

The swelling democratic tide;

To watch the state's uncertain frame,

And baffle Faction's partial aim:

But chiefly, with determined zeal,

To quell that servile band, who kneel

To Freedom's banish'd foes;

That monster, which is daily found

Expert and bold thy country's peace to wound;

Yet dreads to handle arms, nor manly counsel knows.

V.--3.

'Tis highest Heaven's command,

That guilty aims should sordid paths pursue;

That what ensnares the heart should maim the hand,

And Virtue's worthless foes be false to glory too.

But look on Freedom;--see, through every age,

What labours, perils, griefs, hath she disdain'd!

What arms, what regal pride, what priestly rage,

Have her dread offspring conquer'd or sustain'd!

For Albion well have conquer'd. Let the strains

Of happy swains,

Which now resound

Where Scarsdale's cliffs the swelling pastures bound,

Bear witness;--there, oft let the farmer hail

The sacred orchard which embowers his gate,

And show to strangers passing down the vale,

Where Candish, Booth, and Osborne sate;

When, bursting from their country's chain,

Even in the midst of deadly harms,

Of papal snares and lawless arms,

They plann'd for Freedom this her noblest reign.

VI.--1.

This reign, these laws, this public care,

Which Nassau gave us all to share,

Had ne'er adorn'd the English name,

Could Fear have silenced Freedom's claim.

But Fear in vain attempts to bind

Those lofty efforts of the mind

Which social good inspires;

Where men, for this, assault a throne,

Each adds the common welfare to his own;

And each unconquer'd heart the strength of all acquires.

VI.--2.

Say, was it thus, when late we view'd

Our fields in civil blood imbrued?

When fortune crown'd the barbarous host,

And half the astonish'd isle was lost?

Did one of all that vaunting train,

Who dare affront a peaceful reign,

Durst one in arms appear?

Durst one in counsels pledge his life?

Stake his luxurious fortunes in the strife?

Or lend his boasted name his vagrant friends to cheer?

VI.--3.

Yet, Hastings, these are they

Who challenge to themselves thy country's love;

The true; the constant: who alone can weigh,

What glory should demand, or liberty approve!

But let their works declare them. Thy free powers,

The generous powers of thy prevailing mind,

Not for the tasks of their confederate hours,

Lewd brawls and lurking slander, were design'd.

Be thou thy own approver. Honest praise

Oft nobly sways

Ingenuous youth;

But, sought from cowards and the lying mouth,

Praise is reproach. Eternal God alone

For mortals fixeth that sublime award.

He, from the faithful records of his throne,

Bids the historian and the bard

Dispose of honour and of scorn;

Discern the patriot from the slave;

And write the good, the wise, the brave,

For lessons to the multitude unborn.

[Footnote 1: 'A tyrant:' Octavianus Cæsar.]

BOOK II.

ODE I.

THE REMONSTRANCE OF SHAKSPEARE:

SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN AT THE THEATRE-ROYAL, WHILE THE

FRENCH COMEDIANS WERE ACTING BY SUBSCRIPTION. 1749.

If, yet regardful of your native land,

Old Shakspeare's tongue you deign to understand,

Lo, from the blissful bowers where heaven rewards

Instructive sages and unblemish'd bards,

I come, the ancient founder of the stage,

Intent to learn, in this discerning age,

What form of wit your fancies have embraced,

And whither tends your elegance of taste,

That thus at length our homely toils you spurn,

That thus to foreign scenes you proudly turn, 10

That from my brow the laurel wreath you claim

To crown the rivals of your country's fame.

What though the footsteps of my devious Muse

The measured walks of Grecian art refuse?

Or though the frankness of my hardy style

Mock the nice touches of the critic's file?

Yet, what my age and climate held to view,

Impartial I survey'd and fearless drew.

And say, ye skilful in the human heart,

Who know to prize a poet's noblest part, 20

What age, what clime, could e'er an ampler field

For lofty thought, for daring fancy, yield?

I saw this England break the shameful bands

Forged for the souls of men by sacred hands:

I saw each groaning realm her aid implore;

Her sons the heroes of each warlike shore:

Her naval standard (the dire Spaniard's bane)

Obey'd through all the circuit of the main.

Then, too, great Commerce, for a late found world,

Around your coast her eager sails unfurl'd! 30

New hopes, new passions, thence the bosom fired;

New plans, new arts, the genius thence inspired;

Thence every scene, which private fortune knows,

In stronger life, with bolder spirit, rose.

Disgraced I this full prospect which I drew,

My colours languid, or my strokes untrue?

Have not your sages, warriors, swains, and kings,

Confess'd the living draught of men and things?

What other bard in any clime appears

Alike the master of your smiles and tears? 40

Yet have I deign'd your audience to entice

With wretched bribes to luxury and vice?

Or have my various scenes a purpose known

Which freedom, virtue, glory, might not own?

Such from the first was my dramatic plan;

It should be yours to crown what I began:

And now that England spurns her Gothic chain,

And equal laws and social science reign,

I thought, Now surely shall my zealous eyes

View nobler bards and juster critics rise, 50

Intent with learned labour to refine

The copious ore of Albion's native mine,

Our stately Muse more graceful airs to teach,

And form her tongue to more attractive speech,

Till rival nations listen at her feet,

And own her polish'd as they own her great.

But do you thus my favourite hopes fulfil?

Is France at last the standard of your skill?

Alas for you! that so betray a mind

Of art unconscious and to beauty blind. 60

Say, does her language your ambition raise,

Her barren, trivial, unharmonious phrase,

Which fetters eloquence to scantiest bounds,

And maims the cadence of poetic sounds?

Say, does your humble admiration choose

The gentle prattle of her Comic Muse,

While wits, plain-dealers, fops, and fools appear,

Charged to say nought but what the king may hear?

Or rather melt your sympathising hearts

Won by her tragic scene's romantic arts, 70

Where old and young declaim on soft desire,

And heroes never, but for love, expire?

No. Though the charms of novelty, a while,

Perhaps too fondly win your thoughtless smile,

Yet not for you design'd indulgent fate

The modes or manners of the Bourbon state.

And ill your minds my partial judgment reads,

And many an augury my hope misleads,

If the fair maids of yonder blooming train

To their light courtship would an audience deign, 80

Or those chaste matrons a Parisian wife

Choose for the model of domestic life;

Or if one youth of all that generous band,

The strength and splendour of their native land,

Would yield his portion of his country's fame,

And quit old freedom's patrimonial claim,

With lying smiles oppression's pomp to see,

And judge of glory by a king's decree.

O bless'd at home with justly-envied laws,

O long the chiefs of Europe's general cause, 90

Whom heaven hath chosen at each dangerous hour

To check the inroads of barbaric power,

The rights of trampled nations to reclaim,

And guard the social world from bonds and shame;

Oh! let not luxury's fantastic charms

Thus give the lie to your heroic arms:

Nor for the ornaments of life embrace

Dishonest lessons from that vaunting race,

Whom fate's dread laws (for, in eternal fate

Despotic rule was heir to freedom's hate), 100

Whom in each warlike, each commercial part,

In civil council, and in pleasing art,

The judge of earth predestined for your foes,

And made it fame and virtue to oppose.

ODE II.

TO SLEEP.

1 Thou silent power, whose welcome sway

Charms every anxious thought away;

In whose divine oblivion drown'd,

Sore pain and weary toil grow mild,

Love is with kinder looks beguiled,

And grief forgets her fondly cherish'd wound;

Oh, whither hast thou flown, indulgent god?

God of kind shadows and of healing dews,

Whom dost thou touch with thy Lethæan rod?

Around whose temples now thy opiate airs diffuse?

2 Lo, Midnight from her starry reign

Looks awful down on earth and main.

The tuneful birds lie hush'd in sleep,

With all that crop the verdant food,

With all that skim the crystal flood,

Or haunt the caverns of the rocky steep.

No rushing winds disturb the tufted bowers;

No wakeful sound the moonlight valley knows,

Save where the brook its liquid murmur pours,

And lulls the waving scene to more profound repose.

3 Oh, let not me alone complain,

Alone invoke thy power in vain!

Descend, propitious, on my eyes;

Not from the couch that bears a crown,

Not from the courtly statesman's down,

Nor where the miser and his treasure lies:

Bring not the shapes that break the murderer's rest,

Nor those the hireling soldier loves to see,

Nor those which haunt the bigot's gloomy breast:

Far be their guilty nights, and far their dreams from me!

4 Nor yet those awful forms present,

For chiefs and heroes only meant:

The figured brass, the choral song,

The rescued people's glad applause,

The listening senate, and the laws

Fix'd by the counsels of Timoleon's [1] tongue,

Are scenes too grand for fortune's private ways;

And though they shine in youth's ingenuous view,

The sober gainful arts of modern days

To such romantic thoughts have bid a long adieu.

5 I ask not, god of dreams, thy care

To banish Love's presentments fair:

Nor rosy cheek nor radiant eye

Can arm him with such strong command

That the young sorcerer's fatal hand

Should round my soul his pleasing fetters tie.

Nor yet the courtier's hope, the giving smile

(A lighter phantom, and a baser chain)

Did e'er in slumber my proud lyre beguile

To lend the pomp of thrones her ill-according strain.

6 But, Morpheus, on thy balmy wing

Such honourable visions bring,

As soothed great Milton's injured age,

When in prophetic dreams he saw

The race unborn with pious awe

Imbibe each virtue from his heavenly page:

Or such as Mead's benignant fancy knows

When health's deep treasures, by his art explored,

Have saved the infant from an orphan's woes,

Or to the trembling sire his age's hope restored.

[Footnote: 1: After Timoleon had delivered Syracuse from the tyranny

of Dionysius, the people on every important deliberation sent for him

into the public assembly, asked his advice, and voted according to it.

--_Plutarch_.]

ODE III.

TO THE CUCKOO.

1 O rustic herald of the spring,

At length in yonder woody vale

Fast by the brook I hear thee sing;

And, studious of thy homely tale,

Amid the vespers of the grove,

Amid the chanting choir of love,

Thy sage responses hail.

2 The time has been when I have frown'd

To hear thy voice the woods invade;

And while thy solemn accent drown'd

Some sweeter poet of the shade,

Thus, thought I, thus the sons of care

Some constant youth or generous fair

With dull advice upbraid.

3 I said, 'While Philomela's song

Proclaims the passion of the grove,

It ill beseems a cuckoo's tongue

Her charming language to reprove'--

Alas, how much a lover's ear

Hates all the sober truth to hear,

The sober truth of love!

4 When hearts are in each other bless'd,

When nought but lofty faith can rule

The nymph's and swain's consenting breast,

How cuckoo-like in Cupid's school,

With store of grave prudential saws

On fortune's power and custom's laws,

Appears each friendly fool!

5 Yet think betimes, ye gentle train

Whom love, and hope, and fancy sway,

Who every harsher care disdain,

Who by the morning judge the day,

Think that, in April's fairest hours,

To warbling shades and painted flowers

The cuckoo joins his lay.

ODE IV.

TO THE HONOURABLE CHARLES TOWNSHEND;

IN THE COUNTRY. 1750.

I.--1.

How oft shall I survey

This humble roof, the lawn, the greenwood shade,

The vale with sheaves o'erspread,

The glassy brook, the flocks which round thee stray?

When will thy cheerful mind

Of these have utter'd all her dear esteem?

Or, tell me, dost thou deem

No more to join in glory's toilsome race,

But here content embrace

That happy leisure which thou hadst resign'd?

I.--2.

Alas, ye happy hours,

When books and youthful sport the soul could share,

Ere one ambitious care

Of civil life had awed her simpler powers;

Oft as your winged, train

Revisit here my friend in white array,

Oh, fail not to display

Each fairer scene where I perchance had part,

That so his generous heart

The abode of even friendship may remain.

I.--3.

For not imprudent of my loss to come,

I saw from Contemplation's quiet cell

His feet ascending to another home,

Where public praise and envied greatness dwell.

But shall we therefore, O my lyre,

Reprove ambition's best desire,--

Extinguish glory's flame?

Far other was the task enjoin'd

When to my hand thy strings were first assign'd:

Far other faith belongs to friendship's honour'd name.

II.--1.

Thee, Townshend, not the arms

Of slumbering Ease, nor Pleasure's rosy chain,

Were destined to detain;

No, nor bright Science, nor the Muse's charms.

For them high heaven prepares

Their proper votaries, an humbler band:

And ne'er would Spenser's hand

Have deign'd to strike the warbling Tuscan shell,

Nor Harrington to tell

What habit an immortal city wears;

II.--2.

Had this been born to shield

The cause which Cromwell's impious hand betray'd,

Or that, like Vere, display'd

His redcross banner o'er the Belgian field;

Yet where the will divine

Hath shut those loftiest paths, it next remains,

With reason clad in strains

Of harmony, selected minds to inspire,

And virtue's living fire

To feed and eternise in hearts like thine.

II.--3.

For never shall the herd, whom envy sways,

So quell my purpose or my tongue control,

That I should fear illustrious worth to praise,

Because its master's friendship moved my soul.

Yet, if this undissembling strain

Should now perhaps thine ear detain

With any pleasing sound,

Remember thou that righteous Fame

From hoary age a strict account will claim

Of each auspicious palm with which thy youth was crown'd.

III.--1.

Nor obvious is the way

Where heaven expects thee nor the traveller leads;

Through flowers or fragrant meads,

Or groves that hark to Philomela's lay.

The impartial laws of fate

To nobler virtues wed severer cares.

Is there a man who shares

The summit next where heavenly natures dwell?

Ask him (for he can tell)

What storms beat round that rough laborious height.

III.--2.

Ye heroes, who of old

Did generous England Freedom's throne ordain;

From Alfred's parent reign

To Nassau, great deliverer, wise and bold;

I know your perils hard,

Your wounds, your painful marches, wintry seas,

The night estranged from ease,

The day by cowardice and falsehood vex'd,

The head with doubt perplex'd,

The indignant heart disdaining the reward,

III.--3.

Which envy hardly grants. But, O renown,

O praise from judging heaven and virtuous men,

If thus they purchased thy divinest crown,

Say, who shall hesitate, or who complain?

And now they sit on thrones above:

And when among the gods they move

Before the Sovereign Mind,

'Lo, these,' he saith, 'lo, these are they

Who to the laws of mine eternal sway

From violence and fear asserted human kind.'

IV.--1.

Thus honour'd while the train

Of legislators in his presence dwell;

If I may aught foretell,

The statesman shall the second palm obtain.

For dreadful deeds of arms

Let vulgar bards, with undiscerning praise,

More glittering trophies raise:

But wisest Heaven what deeds may chiefly move

To favour and to love?

What, save wide blessings, or averted harms?

IV.--2.

Nor to the embattled field

Shall these achievements of the peaceful gown,

The green immortal crown

Of valour, or the songs of conquest, yield.

Not Fairfax wildly bold,

While bare of crest he hew'd his fatal way

Through Naseby's firm array,

To heavier dangers did his breast oppose

Than Pym's free virtue chose,

When the proud force of Strafford he controll'd.

IV.--3.

But what is man at enmity with truth?

What were the fruits of Wentworth's copious mind,

When (blighted all the promise of his youth)

The patriot in a tyrant's league had join'd?

Let Ireland's loud-lamenting plains,

Let Tyne's and Humber's trampled swains,

Let menaced London tell

How impious guile made wisdom base;

How generous zeal to cruel rage gave place;

And how unbless'd he lived and how dishonour'd fell.

V.--1.

Thence never hath the Muse

Around his tomb Pierian roses flung:

Nor shall one poet's tongue

His name for music's pleasing labour choose.

And sure, when Nature kind

Hath deck'd some favour'd breast above the throng,

That man with grievous wrong

Affronts and wounds his genius, if he bends

To guilt's ignoble ends

The functions of his ill-submitting mind.

V.--2.

For worthy of the wise

Nothing can seem but virtue; nor earth yield

Their fame an equal field,

Save where impartial freedom gives the prize.

There Somers fix'd his name,

Enroll'd the next to William. There shall Time

To every wondering clime

Point out that Somers, who from faction's crowd,

The slanderous and the loud,

Could fair assent and modest reverence claim.

V.--3.

Nor aught did laws or social arts acquire,

Nor this majestic weal of Albion's land

Did aught accomplish, or to aught aspire,

Without his guidance, his superior hand.

And rightly shall the Muse's care

Wreaths like her own for him prepare,

Whose mind's enamour'd aim

Could forms of civil beauty draw

Sublime as ever sage or poet saw,

Yet still to life's rude scene the proud ideas tame.

VI.--1.

Let none profane be near!

The Muse was never foreign to his breast:

On power's grave seat confess'd,

Still to her voice he bent a lover's ear.

And if the blessed know

Their ancient cares, even now the unfading groves,

Where haply Milton roves

With Spenser, hear the enchanted echoes round

Through farthest heaven resound

Wise Somers, guardian of their fame below.

VI.--2.

He knew, the patriot knew,

That letters and the Muse's powerful art

Exalt the ingenuous heart,

And brighten every form of just and true.

They lend a nobler sway

To civil wisdom, than corruption's lure

Could ever yet procure:

They, too, from envy's pale malignant light

Conduct her forth to sight,

Clothed in the fairest colours of the day.

VI.--3.

O Townshend, thus may Time, the judge severe,

Instruct my happy tongue of thee to tell:

And when I speak of one to Freedom dear

For planning wisely and for acting well,

Of one whom Glory loves to own,

Who still by liberal means alone

Hath liberal ends pursued;

Then, for the guerdon of my lay,

'This man with faithful friendship,' will I say,

'From youth to honour'd age my arts and me hath view'd.'

ODE V.

ON LOVE OF PRAISE.

1 Of all the springs within the mind

Which prompt her steps in fortune's maze,

From none more pleasing aid we find

Than from the genuine love of praise.

2 Nor any partial, private end

Such reverence to the public bears;

Nor any passion, virtue's friend,

So like to virtue's self appears.

3 For who in glory can delight

Without delight in glorious deeds?

What man a charming voice can slight,

Who courts the echo that succeeds?

4 But not the echo on the voice

More than on virtue praise depends;

To which, of course, its real price

The judgment of the praiser lends.

5 If praise, then, with religious awe

From the sole perfect judge be sought,

A nobler aim, a purer law,

Nor priest, nor bard, nor sage hath taught.

6 With which in character the same,

Though in an humbler sphere it lies,

I count that soul of human fame,

The suffrage of the good and wise.

ODE VI.

TO WILLIAM HALL, ESQUIRE; WITH THE WORKS OF CHAULIEU.

1 Attend to Chaulieu's wanton lyre;

While, fluent as the skylark sings

When first the morn allures its wings,

The epicure his theme pursues:

And tell me if, among the choir

Whose music charms the banks of Seine,

So full, so free, so rich a strain

E'er dictated the warbling Muse.

2 Yet, Hall, while thy judicious ear

Admires the well-dissembled art

That can such harmony impart

To the lame pace of Gallic rhymes;

While wit from affectation clear,

Bright images, and passions true,

Recall to thy assenting view

The envied bards of nobler times;

3 Say, is not oft his doctrine wrong?

This priest of Pleasure, who aspires

To lead us to her sacred fires,

Knows he the ritual of her shrine?

Say (her sweet influence to thy song

So may the goddess still afford),

Doth she consent to be adored

With shameless love and frantic wine?

4 Nor Cato, nor Chrysippus here

Need we in high indignant phrase

From their Elysian quiet raise:

But Pleasure's oracle alone

Consult; attentive, not severe.

O Pleasure, we blaspheme not thee;

Nor emulate the rigid knee

Which bends but at the Stoic throne.

5 We own, had fate to man assign'd

Nor sense, nor wish but what obey,

Or Venus soft, or Bacchus gay,

Then might our bard's voluptuous creed

Most aptly govern human kind:

Unless perchance what he hath sung

Of tortured joints and nerves unstrung,

Some wrangling heretic should plead.

6 But now, with all these proud desires

For dauntless truth and honest fame;

With that strong master of our frame,

The inexorable judge within,

What can be done? Alas, ye fires

Of love; alas, ye rosy smiles,

Ye nectar'd cups from happier soils,--

Ye have no bribe his grace to win.

ODE VII.

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND BENJAMIN, LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER. 1754.

I.--l.

For toils which patriots have endured,

For treason quell'd and laws secured,

In every nation Time displays

The palm of honourable praise.

Envy may rail, and Faction fierce

May strive; but what, alas, can those

(Though bold, yet blind and sordid foes)

To Gratitude and Love oppose,

To faithful story and persuasive verse?

I.--2.

O nurse of freedom, Albion, say,

Thou tamer of despotic sway,

What man, among thy sons around,

Thus heir to glory hast thou found?

What page, in all thy annals bright,

Hast thou with purer joy survey'd

Than that where truth, by Hoadly's aid,

Shines through imposture's solemn shade,

Through kingly and through sacerdotal night?

I.--3.

To him the Teacher bless'd,

Who sent religion, from the palmy field

By Jordan, like the morn to cheer the west,

And lifted up the veil which heaven from earth conceal'd,

To Hoadly thus his mandate he address'd:

'Go thou, and rescue my dishonour'd law

From hands rapacious, and from tongues impure:

Let not my peaceful name be made a lure,

Fell persecution's mortal snares to aid:

Let not my words be impious chains to draw

The freeborn soul in more than brutal awe,

To faith without assent, allegiance unrepaid.'

II.--1.

No cold or unperforming hand

Was arm'd by Heaven with this command.

The world soon felt it; and, on high,

To William's ear with welcome joy

Did Locke among the blest unfold

The rising hope of Hoadly's name;

Godolphin then confirm'd the fame;

And Somers, when from earth he came,

And generous Stanhope the fair sequel told.

II.--2.

Then drew the lawgivers around

(Sires of the Grecian name renown'd),

And listening ask'd, and wondering knew,

What private force could thus subdue

The vulgar and the great combined;

Could war with sacred folly wage;

Could a whole nation disengage

From the dread bonds of many an age,

And to new habits mould the public mind.

II.-3.

For not a conqueror's sword,

Nor the strong powers to civil founders known,

Were his; but truth by faithful search explored,

And social sense, like seed, in genial plenty sown.

Wherever it took root, the soul (restored

To freedom) freedom too for others sought.

Not monkish craft, the tyrant's claim divine,

Not regal zeal, the bigot's cruel shrine,

Could longer guard from reason's warfare sage;

Nor the wild rabble to sedition wrought,

Nor synods by the papal Genius taught,

Nor St. John's spirit loose, nor Atterbury's rage.

III.--1.

But where shall recompense be found?

Or how such arduous merit crown'd?

For look on life's laborious scene:

What rugged spaces lie between

Adventurous Virtue's early toils

And her triumphal throne! The shade

Of death, meantime, does oft invade

Her progress; nor, to us display'd,

Wears the bright heroine her expected spoils.

III.--2.

Yet born to conquer is her power;--

O Hoadly, if that favourite hour

On earth arrive, with thankful awe

We own just Heaven's indulgent law,

And proudly thy success behold;

We attend thy reverend length of days

With benediction and with praise,

And hail thee in our public ways

Like some great spirit famed in ages old.

III.--3.

While thus our vows prolong

Thy steps on earth, and when by us resign'd

Thou join'st thy seniors, that heroic throng

Who rescued or preserved the rights of human kind,

Oh! not unworthy may thy Albion's tongue

Thee still, her friend and benefactor, name:

Oh! never, Hoadly, in thy country's eyes,

May impious gold, or pleasure's gaudy prize,

Make public virtue, public freedom, vile;

Nor our own manners tempt us to disclaim

That heritage, our noblest wealth and fame,

Which thou hast kept entire from force and factious guile.

ODE VIII.

1 If rightly tuneful bards decide,

If it be fix'd in Love's decrees,

That Beauty ought not to be tried

But by its native power to please,

Then tell me, youths and lovers, tell,

What fair can Amoret excel?

2 Behold that bright unsullied smile,

And wisdom speaking in her mien:

Yet (she so artless all the while,

So little studious to be seen)

We nought but instant gladness know,

Nor think to whom the gift we owe.

3 But neither music, nor the powers

Of youth and mirth and frolic cheer,

Add half that sunshine to the hours,

Or make life's prospect half so clear,

As memory brings it to the eye

From scenes where Amoret was by.

4 Yet not a satirist could there

Or fault or indiscretion find;

Nor any prouder sage declare

One virtue, pictured in his mind,

Whose form with lovelier colours glows

Than Amoret's demeanour shows.

5 This sure is Beauty's happiest part:

This gives the most unbounded sway:

This shall enchant the subject heart

When rose and lily fade away;

And she be still, in spite of time,

Sweet Amoret in all her prime.

ODE IX.

AT STUDY.

1 Whither did my fancy stray?

By what magic drawn away

Have I left my studious theme,

From this philosophic page,

From the problems of the sage,

Wandering through a pleasing dream?

2 'Tis in vain, alas! I find,

Much in vain, my zealous mind

Would to learned Wisdom's throne

Dedicate each thoughtful hour:

Nature bids a softer power

Claim some minutes for his own.

3 Let the busy or the wise

View him with contemptuous eyes;

Love is native to the heart:

Guide its wishes as you will;

Without Love you'll find it still

Void in one essential part.

4 Me though no peculiar fair

Touches with a lover's care;

Though the pride of my desire

Asks immortal friendship's name,

Asks the palm of honest fame,

And the old heroic lyre;

5 Though the day have smoothly gone,

Or to letter'd leisure known,

Or in social duty spent;

Yet at eve my lonely breast

Seeks in vain for perfect rest;

Languishes for true content.

ODE X.

TO THOMAS EDWARDS, ESQ.;

ON THE LATE EDITION OF MR. POPE'S WORKS. 1751.

1 Believe me, Edwards, to restrain

The licence of a railer's tongue

Is what but seldom men obtain

By sense or wit, by prose or song:

A task for more Herculean powers,

Nor suited to the sacred hours

Of leisure in the Muse's bowers.

2 In bowers where laurel weds with palm,

The Muse, the blameless queen, resides:

Fair Fame attends, and Wisdom calm

Her eloquence harmonious guides:

While, shut for ever from her gate,

Oft trying, still repining, wait

Fierce Envy and calumnious Hate.

3 Who, then, from her delightful bounds

Would step one moment forth to heed

What impotent and savage sounds

From their unhappy mouths proceed?

No: rather Spenser's lyre again

Prepare, and let thy pious strain

For Pope's dishonour'd shade complain.

4 Tell how displeased was every bard,

When lately in the Elysian grove

They of his Muse's guardian heard,

His delegate to fame above;

And what with one accord they said

Of wit in drooping age misled,

And Warburton's officious aid:

5 How Virgil mourn'd the sordid fate

To that melodious lyre assign'd,

Beneath a tutor who so late

With Midas and his rout combined

By spiteful clamour to confound

That very lyre's enchanting sound,

Though listening realms admired around:

6 How Horace own'd he thought the fire

Of his friend Pope's satiric line

Did further fuel scarce require

From such a militant divine:

How Milton scorn'd the sophist vain,

Who durst approach his hallow'd strain

With unwash'd hands and lips profane.

7 Then Shakspeare debonair and mild

Brought that strange comment forth to view;

Conceits more deep, he said and smiled,

Than his own fools or madmen knew:

But thank'd a generous friend above,

Who did with free adventurous love

Such pageants from his tomb remove.

8 And if to Pope, in equal need,

The same kind office thou wouldst pay,

Then, Edwards, all the band decreed

That future bards with frequent lay

Should call on thy auspicious name,

From each absurd intruder's claim

To keep inviolate their fame.

ODE XI.

TO THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND. 1758.

1 Whither is Europe's ancient spirit fled?

Where are those valiant tenants of her shore,

Who from the warrior bow the strong dart sped,

Or with firm hand the rapid pole-axe bore?

Freeman and soldier was their common name,

Who late with reapers to the furrow came,

Now in the front of battle charged the foe:

Who taught the steer the wintry plough to endure,

Now in full councils check'd encroaching power,

And gave the guardian laws their majesty to know.

2 But who are ye? from Ebro's loitering sons

To Tiber's pageants, to the sports of Seine;

From Rhine's frail palaces to Danube's thrones

And cities looking on the Cimbric main,

Ye lost, ye self-deserted? whose proud lords

Have baffled your tame hands, and given your swords

To slavish ruffians, hired for their command:

These, at some greedy monk's or harlot's nod,

See rifled nations crouch beneath their rod:

These are the Public Will, the Reason of the land.

3 Thou, heedless Albion, what, alas, the while

Dost thou presume? O inexpert in arms,

Yet vain of Freedom, how dost thou beguile,

With dreams of hope, these near and loud alarms?

Thy splendid home, thy plan of laws renown'd,

The praise and envy of the nations round,

What care hast thou to guard from Fortune's sway?

Amid the storms of war, how soon may all

The lofty pile from its foundations fall,

Of ages the proud toil, the ruin of a day!

4 No: thou art rich, thy streams and fertile vales

Add Industry's wise gifts to Nature's store,

And every port is crowded with thy sails,

And every wave throws treasure on thy shore.

What boots it? If luxurious Plenty charm

Thy selfish heart from Glory, if thy arm

Shrink at the frowns of Danger and of Pain,

Those gifts, that treasure is no longer thine.

Oh, rather far be poor! Thy gold will shine

Tempting the eye of Force, and deck thee to thy bane.

5 But what hath Force or War to do with thee?

Girt by the azure tide, and throned sublime

Amid thy floating bulwarks, thou canst see,

With scorn, the fury of each hostile clime

Dash'd ere it reach thee. Sacred from the foe

Are thy fair fields: athwart thy guardian prow

No bold invader's foot shall tempt the strand--

Yet say, my country, will the waves and wind

Obey thee? Hast thou all thy hopes resign'd

To the sky's fickle faith, the pilot's wavering hand?

6 For, oh! may neither Fear nor stronger Love

(Love, by thy virtuous princes nobly won)

Thee, last of many wretched nations, move,

With mighty armies station'd round the throne

To trust thy safety. Then, farewell the claims

Of Freedom! Her proud records to the flames

Then bear, an offering at Ambition's shrine;

Whate'er thy ancient patriots dared demand

From furious John's, or faithless Charles' hand,

Or what great William seal'd for his adopted line.

7 But if thy sons be worthy of their name,

If liberal laws with liberal arts they prize,

Let them from conquest, and from servile shame,

In War's glad school their own protectors rise.

Ye chiefly, heirs of Albion's cultured plains,

Ye leaders of her bold and faithful swains,

Now not unequal to your birth be found;

The public voice bids arm your rural state,

Paternal hamlets for your ensigns wait,

And grange and fold prepare to pour their youth around.

8 Why are ye tardy? what inglorious care

Detains you from their head, your native post?

Who most their country's fame and fortune share,

'Tis theirs to share her toils, her perils most.

Each man his task in social life sustains.

With partial labours, with domestic gains,

Let others dwell: to you indulgent Heaven

By counsel and by arms the public cause

To serve for public love and love's applause,

The first employment far, the noblest hire, hath given.

9 Have ye not heard of Lacedemon's fame?

Of Attic chiefs in Freedom's war divine?

Of Rome's dread generals? the Valerian name?

The Fabian sons? the Scipios, matchless line?

Your lot was theirs: the farmer and the swain

Met his loved patron's summons from the plain;

The legions gather'd; the bright eagles flew:

Barbarian monarchs in the triumph mourn'd;

The conquerors to their household gods return'd,

And fed Calabrian flocks, and steer'd the Sabine plough.

10 Shall, then, this glory of the antique age,

This pride of men, be lost among mankind?

Shall war's heroic arts no more engage

The unbought hand, the unsubjected mind?

Doth valour to the race no more belong?

No more with scorn of violence and wrong

Doth forming Nature now her sons inspire,

That, like some mystery to few reveal'd,

The skill of arms abash'd and awed they yield,

And from their own defence with hopeless hearts retire?

11 O shame to human life, to human laws!

The loose adventurer, hireling of a day,

Who his fell sword without affection draws,

Whose God, whose country, is a tyrant's pay,

This man the lessons of the field can learn;

Can every palm, which decks a warrior, earn,

And every pledge of conquest: while in vain,

To guard your altars, your paternal lands,

Are social arms held out to your free hands:

Too arduous is the lore: too irksome were the pain.

12 Meantime by Pleasure's lying tales allured,

From the bright sun and living breeze ye stray;

And deep in London's gloomy haunts immured,

Brood o'er your fortune's, freedom's, health's decay.

O blind of choice and to yourselves untrue!

The young grove shoots, their bloom the fields renew,

The mansion asks its lord, the swains their friend;

While he doth riot's orgies haply share,

Or tempt the gamester's dark, destroying snare,

Or at some courtly shrine with slavish incense bend.

13 And yet full oft your anxious tongues complain

That lawless tumult prompts the rustic throng;

That the rude village inmates now disdain

Those homely ties which ruled their fathers long.

Alas, your fathers did by other arts

Draw those kind ties around their simple hearts,

And led in other paths their ductile will;

By succour, faithful counsel, courteous cheer,

Won them the ancient manners to revere,

To prize their country's peace and heaven's due rites fulfil.

14 But mark the judgment of experienced Time,

Tutor of nations. Doth light discord tear

A state, and impotent sedition's crime?

The powers of warlike prudence dwell not there;

The powers who to command and to obey,

Instruct the valiant. There would civil sway

The rising race to manly concord tame?

Oft let the marshall'd field their steps unite,

And in glad splendour bring before their sight

One common cause and one hereditary fame.

15 Nor yet be awed, nor yet your task disown,

Though war's proud votaries look on severe;

Though secrets, taught erewhile to them alone,

They deem profaned by your intruding ear.

Let them in vain, your martial hope to quell,

Of new refinements, fiercer weapons tell,

And mock the old simplicity, in vain:

To the time's warfare, simple or refined,

The time itself adapts the warrior's mind:

And equal prowess still shall equal palms obtain.

16 Say then, if England's youth, in earlier days,

On glory's field with well-train'd armies vied,

Why shall they now renounce that generous praise?

Why dread the foreign mercenary's pride?

Though Valois braved young Edward's gentle hand,

And Albert rush'd on Henry's way-worn band,

With Europe's chosen sons in arms renown'd,

Yet not on Vere's bold archers long they look'd,

Nor Audley's squires, nor Mowbray's yeomen brook'd:

They saw their standard fall, and left their monarch bound.