And, lest thou meet my blasted view, O thou, whose spirit most possest Teach me but once like him to feel: 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! Though beauty culled the wreath, 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, And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale. 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, 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 placed her on his sapphire throne; And thou, thou rich-haired youth of morn, Where is the bard whose soul can now High on some cliff, to heaven up-piled, An Eden, like his own, lies spread: From many a cloud that dropped ethereal dew, Nigh sphered in heaven, its native strains could hear, On which that ancient trump he reached was hung: Thither oft, his glory greeting, From Waller's myrtle shades retreating, |