The maids and matrons on her awful voice, Yet he, the bard who first invoked thy name, But reached from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel. But who is he whom later garlands grace, Who left a while o'er Hybla's dews to rove, Wrapt in thy cloudy veil, the incestuous queen And he the wretch of Thebes no more appeared. O Fear, I know thee by my throbbing heart: Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine! ANTISTROPHE. Thou who such weary lengths hast past, 'Gainst which the big waves beat, Hear drowning seamen's cries, in tempests brought? Dark power, with shuddering meek submitted thought, Be mine to read the visions old Which thy awakening bards have told : And, lest thou meet my blasted view, O thou, whose spirit most possest Teach me but once like him to feel: cypress wreath my meed decree, ODE TO SIMPLICITY. O THOU, by Nature taught To breathe her genuine thought, In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong; Who first, on mountains wild, In Fancy, loveliest child, Thy babe, and Pleasure's, nursed the powers of song! Thou, who, with hermit heart, Disdain'st the wealth of art, And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall; But comest a decent maid, In Attic robe arrayed, O chaste, unboastful Nymph, to thee I call! By all the honeyed store On Hybla's thymy shore; By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear By her whose lovelorn woe, In evening musings slow, Soothed sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear: By old Cephisus deep, Who spread his wavy sweep, ; In warbled wanderings, round thy green retreat; On whose enamelled side, When holy Freedom died, No equal haunt allured thy future feet. O sister meek of Truth, To my admiring youth, Thy sober aid and native charms infuse! While Rome could none esteem, But virtue's patriot theme, You loved her hills, and led her laureate band: But staid to sing alone To one distinguished throne; And turned thy face, and fled her altered land. No more, in hall or bower, Love, only Love her forceless numbers mean: Nor olive more, nor vine, Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene. Though taste, though genius, bless To some divine excess, Faint's the cold work till thou inspire the whole : What each, what all supply, May court, may charm, our eye; Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul! Of these let others ask, To aid some mighty task, I only seek to find thy temperate vale; To maids and shepherds round, ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER. As once,— if, not with light regard, Him whose school above the rest At solemn tourney hung on high, The wish of each love-darting eye; Lo! to each other nymph, in turn, applied, As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand, Some chaste and angel friend to virgin fame, Her baffled hand, with vain endeavor, To whom, prepared and bathed in heaven, To gird their blest prophetic loins, And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmixed her flame! The band, as fairy legends say, Was wove on that creating day, When He, who called with thought to birth Yon tented sky, this laughing earth, And dressed with springs and forests tall, And poured the main engirting all, And placed her on his sapphire throne; |