Ambition this shall tempt to rise, And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall try, That mocks the tear it forced to flow; And keen Remorse, with blood defiled, And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe. Lo! in the vale of years beneath More hideous than their queen : This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That every laboring sinew strains, Those in the deeper vitals rage: Lo! Poverty, to fill the band, To each his sufferings: all are men, Condemned alike to groan; The tender for another's pain, The unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'T is folly to be wise. DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power, When first thy sire to send on earth And bade to form her infant mind. What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good. Light they disperse, and with them go To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. Wisdom in sable garb arrayed, Immersed in rapturous thought profound, With leaden eye that loves the ground, With Justice, to herself severe, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. O! gently on thy suppliant's head, Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Not circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen), With thundering voice, and threatening mien, With screaming Horror's funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty: Thy form benign, O goddess, wear, Thy milder influence impart, Thy philosophic train be there To soften, not to wound, my heart. The generous spark extinct revive, Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact my own defects to scan, What others are to feel, and know myself a Man. 12* AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. A thousand rills their mazy progress take: Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign: Headlong, impetuous, see it pour; The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar. I. 2. O! Sovereign of the willing soul, Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares And frantic Passions hear thy soft control. And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command. Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feathered king The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye. I. 3. Thee the voice, the dance, obey, The rosy-crowned Loves are seen With antic Sport, and blue-eyed Pleasures, Now in circling troops they meet : Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare: Where'er she turns, the Graces homage pay. With arms sublime, that float upon the air, In gliding state she wins her easy way : O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move II. 1. Man's feeble race what ills await! Labor, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of fate! The fond complaint, my song, disprove, And justify the laws of Jove. Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? Night and all her sickly dews, Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, He gives to range the dreary sky; Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war. |