Lo! in the vale of years beneath, The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen: This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That numbs the soul with icy hand, To each his suff'rings; all are men Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate, And Happiness too swiftly flies? DA ODE IV. TO ADVERSITY. AUGHTER of Jove, relentless pow'r, Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour Bound in thy adamantine chain, With pangs unfelt before, unpity'd and alone. When first thy sire to send on earth Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore; What sorrow was thou badst her know, And, from her own, she learnt to melt at others' woe. Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly With Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good. Light they disperse; and with them go The summer friend, the flatt'ring foe; By vain Prosperity receiv'd, To her they vow their truth, and are again believ❜d. Wisdom, in sable garb array'd, Immers'd in rapt'rous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent Maid, With leaden eye, that loves the ground, Still on thy solemn steps attend; Warm Charity, the gen'ral friend, With Justice, to herself severe, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head, Dread Goddess! lay thy chast'ning hand, Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Nor circled with the vengeful band: (As by the impious thou art seen) With thund'ring voice and threat'ning mien, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty. Thy form benign, O Goddess! wear, Thy philosophic train be there, To soften, not to wound my heart: The gen'rous 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. ODE V. THE PROGRESS OF POESY. Pindaric. Advertisement. When the Author first published this and the following Ode, he was advised, even by his Friends, to subjoin some few explanatory Notes, but he had too much respect for the Understanding o his Readers to take that Liberty. I. 1. AWAKE, Eolian lyre! awake*, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings; A thousand rills their mazy progress take; Thro' verdant vales and Ceres' golden reign; Headlong, impetuous see it pour; The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the roar I. 2. Oh! Sov'reignt of the willing soul, Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, And frantic Passions hear thy soft control. Has curb'd the fury of his car, And dropp'd his thirsty lauce at thy command: * Awake, my glory! awake, lute and harp. David's Psalms. + Power of harmony to calm the turbulent passions of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar. This is a weak imitation of some beautiful lines in the same Ode. Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king The terror of his beak and lightnings of his eye. 1. 3. Thee the voice, the dance obey, Temper'd to thy warbled lay! The rosy-crowned Loves are seen With antic sport and blue-ey'd Pleasures, Slow-melting strains their queen's approach declare; O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move II. 1. Man's Iceble race what ills await! t Labour and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! And justify the laws of Jove. Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? * Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body. To compensate the real or imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to mankind by the same Providence that sends the day by its cheerful presence to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night. Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, Till down the eastern cliffs afar* Hyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring shafts of war. II. 2. In climest beyond the Solar Road‡, Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, To cheer the shiv'ring native's dull abode; Of Chili's boundless forests laid, She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs and dusky loves. Glory pursue, and gen'rous shame, Th' unconquerable mind and Freedom's holy flame. II. 3. Woods that wave o'er Delphi's steep, Isles that crown th' Egean deep, Fields that cool Ilissus laves, Or where Mæander's a:nber waves In ling'ring lab'rinths creep, Or seen the morning's well-appointed star, + Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and uncivilized nations; its connection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. [See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welsh Fragments; the Lapland and American Songs, &c.] Extra anni solisque vias. Virgil. Tutta lontana dal camin del sole. Petrarch, canz. 2. Progress of poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there: Spenser imitated the Italian writers, |