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.

Thron'd 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?

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.

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 rous'd 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
Renew my mind's oppressive gloom,
Till starting horrour shakes the room.
Is there in Nature no kind power
To sooth Affliction's lonely hour?
To blunt the edge of dire Disease,

And teach these wintery 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,
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,
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 mov'd along,
Delighted to survey below

The joys which from her presence flow,
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 inclin'd her breast,
And, known from that auspicious morn,
Thee, 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
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,
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 pleas'd attend ;
The brother adds the name of friend:
By thee with flowers their board is crown'd,
With songs from thee their walks resound;
And morn with welcome lustre shines,
And evening unperceiv'd 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;
Yet thou, auspicious power, with ease
Canst yield him happier arts to please,
Inform his mien with manlier charms,
Instruct his tongue with noble 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, 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 attir'd: Thy lip Sicilian reeds inspir'd: Thy spirit len: the glad perfume Whence yet the flowers of Teos bloom; 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 blooms congenial to his breast)
Retires in desert scenes to dwell,
And bids the joyless world farewell.
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:
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:
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,
If equal praise I yield thy name,
Still govern thou thy poet's flame:
Still with the Muse my bosom share,
And sooth 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,
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,
Yet leave that sacred sense of woe
Which none but friends and lovers know.

ODE VII.

ON THE USE OF POETRY.

Nor for themselves did human kind
Contrive the parts by Heaven assign'd
On life's wide scene to play:
Not Scipio's force, nor Cæsar's skill
Can conquer Glory's arduous hill,
If Fortune close the way.

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.

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.

Not far beneath the hero's feet,
Nor from the legislator's seat

Stands far remote the bard.
Though not with public terrours crown'd,
Yet wider shall his rule be found,
More lasting his award.

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.

And thus when William's acts divine
No longer shall from Bourbon's line
Draw one vindictive vow;
When Sidney shall with Cato rest,
And Russel move the patriot's breast
No more than Brutus now:

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.

FAREWELL to Leyden's lonely bound,

The Belgian Muse's sober seat; Where, dealing frugal gifts around To all the favourites at her fect,

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.

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 croking choir,
And haply soothe some lover's prudent woe,
Or prompt some restive bard, and modulate his lyre.

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-ey'd fathers of the land, With whom dominion steals from hand to hand, Unown'd, undignify'd 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.

O my lov'd 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, [vide.
While bowers and copses green the golden slope di-

Ye nymphs, who guard the pathless grove,
Ye blue-ey'd sisters of the streams,
With whom I wont at morn to rove,

With whom at noon I talk'd in dreams:
O! 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.

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 Phœbus, 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 fathers' throne?

III.

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.

Great citizen of Albion! thee
Heroic valour still attends,
And useful Science, pleas'd to see

How Art her studious toil extends,
While Truth, diffusing from on high
A lustre unconfin'd as day,

Fills and commands the public eye;
Till, pierc'd and sinking by her powerful ray,
Tame Faith and monkish Awe, like nightly de-
mons, fly.

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,
Their public zeal shall all reproof disclaim.

And call'd herself the state's directing soul: Till Curio, like a good magician, try'd With Eloquence and Reason at his side, [trol. By strength of holier spells the enchantress to con

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 blest retreat Bade social ease and public passions meet, Ascends the civil scene, and knows to be a man.

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. Wak'd 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 challeng'd the deciding hour Of that too vast event, the hope and dread of all.

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.

Twas then-Oshame! O soal from faith estrang'd! O Albion, oft to flattering vows a prey! 'Twas then-Thy thought what sudden frenzy

chang'd?

What rushing palsy took thy strength away? Is this the man in Freedom's cause approv'd? The man so great, so honour'd, so belov'd? Whom the dead envy'd, and the living bless'd? This patient slave by tinsel bonds allur'd? This wretched suitor for a boon abjur'd? Whom those that fear'd him, scorn; that trusted him, detest?

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.

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 mov'd,
The labours which to virtue stand approv'd,

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.

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? 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 effac'd, 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 horrours not their own, Assail the giant chiefs, and press them to the ground.

In sight old Time, imperious judge, awaits:
Ahove 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 rase their sculptur'd names.

Ye mighty shades, arise, give place, attend:

Here his eternal mansion Curio seeks: [bend, -Low doth proud Wentworth to the stranger And his dire welcome hardy Clifford speaks: "He comes, whom Fate with surer arts prepar'd To accomplish all which we but vainly dar'd: Whom o'er the stubborn herd she taught to reign: Who sooth'd with gaudy dreams their raging Even to its last irrevocable hour; [power, Then baffled their rude strength, and broke them to the chain."

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 Drive ye this hostile omen far away; [Thames) Their own fel! efforts on her foes repay; Your wealth, your arts, your fame, be her's 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.

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 nohler 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.

ODE X.

TO THE MUSE.

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?

Say, goddess, can the festal board,
Or young Olympia's form ador'd;
Say, can the pomp of promis'd fame
Relume thy faint, thy dying flame?
Or have melodious airs the power
To give one free, poctic hour?
Or, from amid the Elysian train,
The soul of Milton shall I gain,

To win thee back with some celestial strain?

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.

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.

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.

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,

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.

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.

Yet, conscious of the dangerous charm,
Soon would I turn my steps away;
Nor oft provoke the lovely harm,

Not lull my reason's watchful sway.
But thou, my friend-I hear thy sighs:
Alas! I read thy downcast eyes;

And thy tongue faulters; and thy colour flies.

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!

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 winged boy's malicious hand.

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.

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, BART.

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.