Hush'd the rude roar of discord, rage, and lust, Is this the queen of realms! the glorious isle, Britannia, blest in Heaven's indulgent smile! Guardian of truth, and patroness of art, Nurse of th' undaunted soul, and generous heart Where, from a base unthankful world exiled, Freedom exults to roam the careless wild: Where taste to science every charm supplies, And genius soars unbounded to the skies! And shall a Bufo's most polluted name Stain her bright tablet of untainted fame? Shall his disgraceful name with theirs be join'd, Who wish'd and wrought the welfare of their kind? His name accurst, who leagued with ****** and Hell, Labour'd to rouse, with rude and murderous yell, Discord the fiend, to toss rebellion's brand, To whelm in rage and woe a guiltless laud: fo frustrate wisdom's, virtue's noblest plan, And triumph in the miseries of man. Drivelling and dull, when crawls the reptile Muse, Swoln from the sty, and rankling from the stews, With envy, spleen, and pestilence replete, And gorged with dust she lick'd from Treason's feet: Who once, like Satan, raised to Heaven her sight, But turn'd abhorrent from the hated light :O'er such a Muse shall wreaths of glory bloom? No-shame and execration be her doom. Hard-fated Eufo! could not dulness save Thy soul from sin, from infamy thy grave? Blackmore and Quarles, those blockheads of renown, Harmless they dozed a scribbling life away, Did hate to vice exasperate thy style? Yet blazon'd was his verse with Virtue's name- Nor yet, though thousand cits admire thy rage, Through Alpine dunghills delves his desperate way?) No. 'Twas the demon of thy venom'd heart (Thy heart with rancour's quintessence endued), And the blind zeal of a misjudging crowd. Thus from rank soil a poison'd mushroom sprung, Nursling obscene of mildew and of dung: By Heaven design'd on its own native spot It roused his ravenous undiscerning maw: Gulp'd down the tasteless throat, the mess abhorr'd Had mobs distinguish'd, they who howl'd thy fame, When frailty leads astray the soul sincere, But when a ruffian, whose portentous crimes THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS. (Published in 1765.) FAR in the depth of Ida's inmost grove, R. All up the craggy cliffs, that tower'd to Heaven, Green waved the murmuring pines on every side, Save where, fair opening to the beam of even, A dale sloped gradual to the valley wide. For now, low hovering o'er the western main, Others more mild, in happy leisure gay, Or the blue Hellespont's resounding shore. But chief the eye to Ilion's glories turn'd, That gleam'd along th' extended champaign far, And bulwarks in terrific pomp adorn'd, Where Peace sat smiling at the frowns of War. Rich in the spoils of many a subject-clime, In pride luxurious blaz'd th' imperial dome; Tower'd 'mid th' encircling grove the fane sublime ; And dread memorials mark'd the hero's tomb. Who from the black and bloody cavern led The savage stern, and sooth'd his boisterous breast; Who spoke, and Science rear'd her radiant head, And brighten’d o'er the long benighted waste; Or, greatly daring in his country's cause, Whose heaver. taught soul the awful plan design'd, Whence Power stood trembling at the voice of Laws; Whence soar'd on Freedom's wing th' ethereal mind. But not the pomp that royalty displays, Nor all the imperial pride of lofty Troy, Nor Virtue's triumph of immortal praise Could rouse the languor of the lingering boy. Abandon'd all to soft Enone's charms, He to oblivion doom'd the listless day; Inglorious lull'd in Love's dissolving arms, While flutes lascivious breathed th' enfeebling lay. To trim the ringlets of his scented hair; To aim, insidious, Love's bewitching glance; Or cull fresh garlands for the gaudy fair, Or wanton loose in the voluptuous dance: These were his arts; these won Enone's love, Now laid at large beside a murmuring spring, When slowly floating down the azure skies A crimson cloud flash'd on his startled sight; That instant hush'd was all the vocal grove, And strains aërial, warbling far above, Rung in the ear a magic peal profound. |