(The text is taken from "The Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings of Francis Hopkinson, Esq., Vol. III, 1792.)

ODE ON MUSIC

Hark! hark! the sweet vibrating lyre
Sets my attentive soul on fire;
Thro' all my frame with pleasures thrill
Whilst the loud treble warbles shrill,
And the more slow and solemn bass
Add charm to charm and grace to grace.

Sometimes in sweetly languid strains
The guilty trembling string complains:
How it delights my ravished ear
When the expiring notes I hear
Vanish distant and decay!-
They steal my yielding soul away.

Neatly trip the merry dance, And lightly touch and swiftly glance; Let boundless transport laugh aloud Sounds madly ramble mix and crowd, Till all in one loud rapture rise, Spread thro' the air and reach the skies.

II

Who in thy form, too lovely maid!
Can read thy temper there display'd;
Can look and calmly see?

The face that with such beauty charms, 10
The breast which so much virtue warms,
Is sure too much for me!

ADVICE TO AMANDA

I

Amanda, since thy lovely frame,
Of ev'ry charm possest,

Hath power to raise the purest flame
And warm the coldest breast:

II

Oh! think that heav'n could ne'er design, Thou too reserved maid,

That ever beauties, such as thine,

Like unknown flow'rs should fade.

III

Inscribed to the officers of the 35th regiment on their embarkation for the expedition against Louisbourg1

Now warmer suns, once more bid nature smile,

The new-born spring, peeps from the teaming soil:

From ice the streams, the fields from snow are free,

And blossoms swell on every pregnant tree: The softened season melts in sudden show'rs,

And April all her flow'ry treasures pours; Well might I sing the early warbling lay Of rural songsters at the dawn of day; The riv'let winding thro' the long drawn vale,

The new cloth'd mountain, the green tufted dale;

10

Or shepherd's pipe, that in melodious

spire,

Heroic bosoms with a martial fire:

To war's alarms all softer pleasures yield, And ev'ry Briton burns to take the field. The drums loud beat, the fire's shrill soaring lay.

1 Louisbourg had an interesting history in the border contests between the French and English in the first half of the 18th century. This strong fortress on Cape Breton Island was captured from the French by New England troops in 1745 and surrendered to France by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. The expedi tion mentioned in the two poems of Hopkinson left in the spring of 1758 under Lord Amherst. The siege lasted from June 8 to July 26. The town was demolished, and the fortress badly breached.