Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er
Scatters from her pictured urn
Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
But ah! 'tis heard no more--
Oh! Lyre divine, what daring spirit
Wakes thee now? tho' he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban Eagle bear
Sailing with supreme dominion
Thro' the azure deep of air;
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray
With orient hues, 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.
(GRAY: _The Progress of Poesy._ 1757.)
Gray's _Progress of Poesy_ is probably to be regarded as the chief of
all English odes of the regular Pindaric form. Mr. Lowell said, indeed,
that it "overflies all other English lyrics like an eagle." _The Bard_
is in precisely the same form, and shows the same skill in the wielding
of the intricately varying melodies of the lines of different length.