EPISTLE III. TO THE PRINCE OF ORANGE, ON HIS PASSING THROUGH OXFORD, In His Return from Bath. BY WALTER HARTE, M. A. AT length, in pity to a nation's prayer, Some guardian power, who o'er thy fate presides, Whose eye unerring Albion's welfare guides, Taught yonder streams with new-felt force to flow, And bade th' exalted minerals doubly glow. Thus cold and motionless Bethesda stood, Till heavenly influence brooded o'er the flood. Lo, while our isle with one loud paean rings, Equal, though silent, homage Isis brings; Hers is the task of Reason, not of Art, Words of the mind, and actions of the heart! And sure that unbought praise which Learning brings, Outweighs the vast acclaim that deafens kings; For souls, supremely sensible and great, See through the farce of noise, and pomp of state; Hail, and proceed! be arts like ours thy care, Nor slight those laurels thou wert born to wear : Adorn and emulate thy glorious line, Take thy forefathers worth, and give them thine, Blest with each gift that human hearts can move, In science blest, but doubly blest in love. Power, Beauty, Virtue, dignify thy choice, Each public suffrage, and each private voice. EPISTLE IV. ΤΟ MR. POPE. By the Same. To move the springs of nature as we please, 'Tis your's, like these with curious toil to trace The powers of language, harmony, and grace; How Nature's self with living lustre shines, How judgment strengthens, and how art refines; How to grow bold with conscious sense of fame, And force a pleasure which we dare not blame ; To charm us more through negligence than pains, And give e'en life and action to the strains : Led by some law, whose powerful impulse guides Each happy stroke, and in the soul presides; Some fairer image of perfection given T' inspire mankind, itself deriv'd from heaven. O ever worthy, ever crown'd with praise, Yet sure not so must all peruse thy lays; A thousand charms at once my thoughts engage, So seems some picture, where exact design, And curious pains, and strength, and sweetness join; Where the free thought its pleasing grace bestows, And each warm stroke with living color glows; Soft without weakness, without labor fair, Wrought up at once with happiness and care! How blest the man that from the world removes, To joys that Mordaunt, or his Pope, approves ; Whose taste exact each author can explore, Nor deem this verse, though humble, a disgrace; All are not born the glory of their race: Yet all are born t'adore the great man's name, And trace his footsteps in the paths to fame. The Muse, who now this early homage pays, First learn'd from thee to animate her lays: A Muse as yet unhonor'd, but unstain'd, Who prais'd no vices, no preferment gain'd; Unbias'd or to censure or commend, Who knows no envy, and who grieves no friend; Perhaps too fond to make those virtues known, And fix her fame immortal on thy own. |