To deck the poet's, or the painter's toil,
My verse unfolds. Attend, ye gentle powers
Of musical delight! and, while I sing
Your gifts, your honours, dance around my strain.
Thou, smiling queen of every tuneful breast,
Indulgent Fancy! from the fruitful banks
Of Avon, whence thy rosy fingers cull
Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf
Where Shakespeare lies, be present; and with thee
Let Fiction come, upon her vagrant wings
Wafting ten thousand colours through the air,
And, by the glances of her magic eye,
Combining each in endless fairy forms,
Her wild creation. Goddess of the lyre
Which rules the accents of the moving sphere,
Wilt thou, eternal Harmon! descend
And join this festive train? for with thee comes
The guide, the guardian of their lovely sports,
Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come,
her sister Liberty will not be far.
Be present all ye genii, who conduct
The wandering footsteps of the youthful bard,
New to your springs and shades; who touch his ear
With finer sounds; who heighten to his eye
The bloom of Nature, and before him turn
The gayest, happiest attitudes of things.
High as the summit; there to breathe at large
Aethereal air, with bards and sages old
To this neglected labour court my song;
Yet not unconscious what a doubtful task
To paint the finest features of the mind,
And to most subtile and mysterious things
Give colour, strength, and motion. But the love
Of Nature and the Muses bids explore,
Through secret paths erewhile untrod by man,
The fair poetic region, to detect
Untasted springs, to drink inspiring draughts,
And shade my temples with unfading flowers,
Culled from the laureate vale's profound recess,
Where never poet gained a wreath before.
Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves;
Hence light and shade alternate; warmth and cold;
And clear autumnal skies and vernal showers,
And all the fair variety of things.
Of Titan's ray, with each repulsive string
Consenting, sounded through the warbling air
Unbidden strains; even so did Nature's hand
To certain species of external things,
Attune the finer organs of the mind:
So the glad impulse of congenial powers,
Or of sweet sound, or fair-proportioned form,
The grace of motion, or the bloom of light,
Thrills through Imagination's tender frame,
From nerve to nerve; all naked and alive
They catch the spreading rays; till now the soul
At length discloses every tuneful spring,
To that harmonious movement from without,
Responsive. Then the inexpressive strain
Diffuses its enchantment, Fancy dreams
Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves,
And vales of bliss; the intellectual power
Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear,
And smiles: the passions, gently soothed away,
Sink to divine repose, and love and joy
As airs that fan the summer. Oh! attend,
Whoe'er thou art whom these delights can touch,
Whose candid bosom the refining love
Of Nature warms, Oh! listen to my song;
And I will guide thee to her favourite walks,
And teach thy solitude her voice to hear,
And point her loveliest features to thy view.
I see the radiant visions, where they rise;
More lovely than when Lucifer displays
His beaming forehead through the gates of morn,
To lead the train of Phoebus and the spring.
That murmurs at his feet? The high-born soul
Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing
Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth
And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft
Through fields of air; pursues the flying storm;
Rides on the vollied lightning through the heavens;
Or, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast,
Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars
The blue profound, and, hovering o'er the sun,
Of light; beholds his unrelenting sway
Bend the reluctant planets to absolve
The fated rounds of Time. Thence, far effused,
She darts her swiftness up the long career
Of devious comets; through its burning signs,
Exulting, circles the perennial wheel
Of Nature, and looks back on all the stars,
Whose blended light, as with a milky zone,
Invests the orient. Now amazed she views
The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold,
Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode;
And fields of radiance, whose unfading light
Has travelled the profound six thousand years,
Nor yet arrives in sight of mortal things.
Even on the barriers of the world, untired,
She meditates the eternal depth below;
Till, half recoiling, down the headlong steep
She plunges; soon o'erwhelmed and swallowed up
In that immense of being. There her hopes
Rest at the fated goal. For, from the birth
Of mortal man, the Sovereign Maker said
That not in humble nor in brief delight,
Not in the fading echoes of renown,
Power's purple robes, nor pleasure's flowery lap,
The soul should find enjoyment; but from these
Turning disdainful to an equal good,
Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view,
Till every bound at length should disappear,
And infinite perfection close the scene.
With envy pined. Hence, finally, by night
The village-matron, round the blazing hearth,
Suspends the infant audience with her tales,
Breathing astonishment! of witching rhymes
And evil spirits; of the death-bed call
To him who robbed the widow, and devoured
The orphan's portion; of unquiet souls
Of deeds in life concealed; of shapes that walk
At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave
The torch of hell around the murderer's bed.
At every solemn pause the crowd recoil,
Gazing each other speechless, and congealed
With shivering sighs: till, eager for the event,
Around the beldame all arrect they hang,
Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quelled.
The branches shoot with gold; where'er his step
Marks the glad soil, the tender clusters glow
With purple ripeness, and invest each hill
As with the blushes of an evening sky?
Or wilt thou rather stoop thy vagrant plume
Where, gliding thro' his daughter's honored shades,
The smooth Pene@us from his glassy flood
Reflects purpureal Tempe's pleasant scene?
Fair Tempe! haunt beloved of sylvan Powers,
Of Nymphs and Fauns; where in the golden age
They played in secret on the shady brink
With ancient Pan: while round their choral steps
young Hours and genial Gales with constant hand
Showered blossoms, odours, showered ambrosial dews,
To thee nor Tempe shall refuse; nor watch
Of winged Hydra guard Hesperian fruits
From thy free spoil. Oh! bear then, unreproved,
Thy smiling treasures to the green recess
Where young Dione stays. With sweetest airs
Entice her forth to lend her angel form
For Beauty's honoured image. Hither turn
Thy graceful footsteps; hither, gentle maid,
Incline thy polished forehead: let thy eyes
Effuse the mildness of their azure dawn;
And may the fanning breezes waft aside
Thy radiant locks: disclosing, as it bends
With airy softness from the marble neck,
The cheek fair-blooming, and the rosy lip,
Where winning smiles, and pleasure sweet as love,
With sanctity and wisdom, tempering, blend
Their soft allurement. Then the pleasing force
Of Nature and her kind parental care,
Worthier, I'd sing: then all the enamoured youth,
With each admiring virgin, to my lyre
Should throng attentive, while I point on high
Where Beauty's living image, like the morn
That wakes in Zephyr's arms the blushing May,
Moves onward; or as Venus, when she stood
Effulgent on the pearly car, and smiled,
Fresh from the deep and conscious of her form,
To see the Tritons tune their vocal shells,
And each cerulean sister of the flood
With loud acclaim attend her o'er the waves,
seek the Idalian bower. Ye smiling band
To youths and virgins, who through all the maze
Of young desire with rival steps pursue
This charm of Beauty; if the pleasing toil
Can yield a moment's respite, hither turn
Your favourable ear, and trust my words.
I do not mean to wake the gloomy form
Of Superstition dressed in Wisdom's garb
To damp your tender hopes; I do not mean
To bid the jealous thunderer fire the heavens,
Or shapes infernal rend the groaning earth
To fright you from your joys; my cheerful song
With better omens calls you to field,
Pleased with your generous ardour in the chase,
Does Beauty ever deign to dwell where health
And active use are strangers? Is her charm
Confessed in aught, whose most peculiar ends
Are lame and fruitless? Or did Nature mean
This awful stamp, the herald of a lie,
To hide the shame of discord and disease,
And catch with fair hypocrisy the heart
Of idle faith? Oh no! with better cares
The indulgent mother, conscious how infirm
Her offspring tread the paths of good and ill,
By this illustrious image, in each kind
Still most illustrious where the object holds
Its native powers most perfect, she by this
Illumes the headlong impulse of desire,
And sanctifies his choice. The generous glebe
Whose bosom smiles with verdure, the clear tract
Of streams delicious to the thirsty soul,
The bloom of nectared fruitage ripe to sense,
And every charm of animated things,
Are only pledges of a state sincere,
The integrity and order of their frame,
When all is well within, and every end
Accomplished. Thus was Beauty sent from heaven,
The lovely ministress of Truth and Good
In this dark world; for Truth and Good are one,
And Beauty dwells in them and they in her,
With like participation. Wherefore then,
O sons of earth! would you dissolve the tie?
Oh! wherefore, with a rash, imperfect aim,
Seek you those flowery joys with which the hand
Of lavish Fancy paints each flattering scene
Where Beauty seems to dwell, nor once inquire
Where is the sanction of eternal Truth,
Or where the seal of undeceitful good,
To save your search from folly? Wanting these,
Lo! Beauty withers in your void embrace,
And with the glittering of an idiot's toy
Did Fancy mock your vows. Nor let the gleam
Of youthful hope that shines upon your hearts,
Be chilled or clouded at this awful task,
To learn the lore of undeceitful good
And Truth eternal. Though the poisonous charms
Of baleful Superstition guide the feet
To their abode, through deserts, thorns, and mire;
And leave the wretched pilgrim all forlorn
To muse, at last, amid the ghostly gloom
Of graves, and hoary vaults, and cloistered cells;
To walk with spectres through the midnight shade,
And to the screaming owl's accursed song
Attune the dreadful workings of his heart;
Yet be not you dismayed. A gentler star
Your lovely search illumines. From the grove
Where Wisdom talked with her Athenian sons,
Could my ambitious hand entwine a wreath
Of Plato's olive with the Mantuan bay,
Then should my powerful voice at once dispel
Those monkish horrors: then, in light divine,
Disclose the Elysian prospect, where the steps
Of those whom Nature charms, through blooming walks,
Through fragrant mountains, and poetic streams,
Amid the train of sages, heroes, bards,
Led by their winged Genius and the choir
Of laurelled science and harmonious art,
Proceed exulting to the eternal shrine,
Where Truth, enthroned with her celestial twins,
The undivided partners of her sway,
With good and beauty reigns. Oh! let not us,
Lulled by luxurious Pleasure's languid strain,
Or crouching to the frowns of bigot rage;
Oh! let not us a moment pause to join
That godlike band. And, if the gracious Power
Who first awakened my untutored song
Will to my invocation breathe anew
The tuneful spirit, then, through all our paths,
Ne'er shall the sound of this devoted lyre
Be wanting; whether, on the rosy mead
When summer smiles, to warn the melting heart
Of luxury's allurement; whether, firm
Against the torrent and the stubborn hill,
To urge bold Virtue's unremitted nerve,
And wake the strong divinity of soul
That conquers chance and fate; or whether, struck
For sounds of triumph, to proclaim her toils
Upon the lofty summit, round her brow
To twine the wreath of incorruptive praise,
And bless Heaven's image in the heart of man.
And active motion speaks the tempered soul:
So moves the bird of Juno; so the steed,
With rival ardour, beats the dusty plain,
And faithful dogs, with eager airs of joy,
Salute their fellows. Thus doth Beauty dwell
There most conspicuous, even in outward shape,
Where dawns the high expression of a mind;
By steps conducting our enraptured search
To that eternal origin, whose power,
Through all the unbounded symmetry of things,
This endless mixture of her charms diffused.
Mind, mind alone, (bear witness earth and heaven!)
The living fountains in itself contains
Of beauteous and sublime: here, hand in hand,
Sit paramount the Graces; here, enthroned,
Celestial Venus, with divinest airs,
Invites the soul to never fading joy.
Look then abroad through nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense;
And speak, O man! does this capacious scene
With half that kindling majesty dilate
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate,
Amid the crowd of patriots; and, his arm
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove
When guilt brings down the thunder, called aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
And bade the father of his country, hail!
For lo! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,
And Rome again is free! Is aught so fair
In all the dewy landscapes of the Spring,
In the bright eye of Hesper, or the morn;
In Nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship? as the candid blush
Of him who strives with fortune to be just?
The graceful tear that streams for others' woes?
Or the mild majesty of private life,
Where Peace with ever blooming olive crowns
The gate; where Honour's liberal hands effuse
Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings
Of Innocence and Love protect the scene?
Once more search, undismayed, the dark profound
Where Nature works in secret; view the beds
Of mineral treasure and the eternal vault
That bounds the hoary ocean; trace the forms
Of atoms moving with incessant change
Their elemental round; behold the seeds
Of being and the energy of life
Kindling the mass with ever active flame:
Then to the secrets of the working mind
Attentive turn; from dim oblivion call
Her fleet, ideal band, and bid them go,
That saw the heavens created: then declare
If aught were found in those external scenes
To move thy wonder now. For what are all
The forms which brute, unconscious matter wears
Greatness of bulk, or symmetry of parts?
Not reaching to the heart, soon feeble grows
The superficial impulse; dull their charms,
And satiate soon, and pall the languid eye.
Not so the moral species, nor the powers
Of genius and design; the ambitious mind
There sees herself: by these congenial forms
Touched and awakened, with intenser act
She bends each nerve, and meditates, well pleased,
Her features in the mirror. For of all
The inhabitants of earth, to man alone
Creative Wisdom gave to lift his eye
To Truth's eternal measures; thence to frame
The sacred laws of action and of will,
Discerning justice from unequal deeds,
And temperance from folly. But, beyond
This energy of Truth, whose dictates bind
Assenting reason, the benignant Sire,
To deck the honoured paths of just and good,
Has added bright Imagination's rays:
Where Virtue, rising from the awful depth
Of Truth's mysterious bosom, doth forsake
The unadorned condition of her birth;
And, dressed by Fancy in ten thousand hues,
Assumes a various feature, to attract,
With charms responsive to each gazer's eye,
The hearts of men. Amid his rural walk,
The ingenuous youth, whom solitude inspires
With purest wishes, from the pensive shade
Beholds her moving, like a virgin muse
That wakes her lyre to some indulgent theme
Of harmony and wonder: while, among
The herd of servile minds, her strenuous form,
Indignant, flashes on the patriot's eye
And, through the rolls of memory, appeals
To ancient honour, or in act serene,
Yet watchful, raises the majestic sword
Of public Powers from dark Ambition's reach,
To guard the sacred volume of the laws.
Of Strife and low Ambition, to attend
Thy sacred presence in the sylvan shade,
By their malignant footsteps ne'er profaned.
Descend, propitious to my favoured eye;
Such in thy mien, thy warm, exalted air,
As when the Persian tyrant, foiled and stung
With shame and desperation, gnashed his teeth
To see thee rend the pageants of his throne;
And at the lightning of thy lifted spear
Crouched like a slave. Bring all thy martial spoils,
Thy palms, thy laurels, thy triumphal songs,
Thy smiling band of art, thy godlike sires
Of civil wisdom, thy heroic youth
Warm from the schools of glory. Guide my way
Through fair Lyce@um's walk, the green retreats
Of Academus, and the thymy vale,
Where, oft enchanted with Socratic sounds,
Ilissus pure devolved his tuneful stream
In gentler murmurs. From the blooming store
Of these auspicious fields, may I, unblamed,
Transplant some living blossoms to adorn
My native clime; while, far above the flight
Of Fancy's plume aspiring, I unlock
The springs of ancient wisdom: while I join
Thy name, thrice honoured, with the immortal praise
Of Nature; while, to my compatriot youth,
I point the high example of thy sons,
And tune to Attic themes the British lyre.
Each Muse and each fair Science pined away
The sordid hours: while foul, barbarian hands
Their mysteries profaned, unstrung the lyre,
And chained the soaring pinion down to earth.
At last the Muses rose, and spurned their bonds,
And, wildly warbling, scattered, as they flew,
Their blooming wreaths from fair Valclusa's bowers
To Arno's myrtle border and the shore
Of soft Parthenope@. But still the rage
Of dire ambition and gigantic power,
From public aims, and from the busy walk
Of civil commerce, drove the bolder train
Of penetrating Science to the cells
Where studious Ease consumes the silent hour
In shadowy searches and unfruitful care.
Thus from their guardians torn, the tender arts
Of mimic fancy and harmonious joy,
To priestly domination and the lust
Of lawless courts, their amiable toil
For three inglorious ages have resigned,
In vain reluctant; and Torquato's tongue
Was tuned for slavish paeans at the throne
Of tinsel pomp; and Raphael's magic hand
Effused its fair creation to enchant
The fond adoring herd in Latian fanes
To blind belief; while on their prostrate necks
The sable tyrant plants his heel secure.
But now, behold! the radiant era dawns,
When freedom's ample fabric, fixed at length
For endless years on Albion's happy shore
In full proportion, once more shall extend,
To all the kindred powers of social bliss,
A common mansion, a parental roof.
There shall the Virtues, there shall Wisdom's train,
Their long-lost friends rejoining, as of old,
Embrace the smiling family of Arts,=
The Muses and the Graces. Then no more
To aims abhorred, with high distaste and scorn
Turn from their charms the philosophic eye,
The patriot bosom; then no more the paths
Of public care or intellectual toil,
Alone by footsteps haughty and severe,
In gloomy state be trod: the harmonious Muse
And her persuasive sisters then shall plant
Their sheltering laurels o'er the bleak ascent,
And scatter flowers along the rugged way.
Armed with lyre, already have we dared
To pierce divine Philosopy's retreats,
And teach the Muse her lore; already strove
Their long divided honours to unite,
While, tempering this deep argument, we sang
Of Truth and Beauty. Now the same glad task
Impends; now, urging our ambitious toil,
We hasten to recount the various springs
Of adventitious pleasure, which adjoin
Their grateful influence to the prime effect
Of objects grand or beauteous, and enlarge
The complicated joy. The sweets of sense;
Do they not oft with kind accession flow,
To raise harmonious Fancy's native charm?
So while we taste the fragrance of the rose,
Glows not her blush the fairer? While we view,
Amid the noontide walk, a limpid rill
Gush through the trickling herbage, to the thirst
Of summer, yielding the delicious draught
Of cool refreshment; o'er the mossy brink
Shines not the surface clearer, and the waves
With sweeter music murmur as they flow?
In those delights which at a different hour
Would pass unheeded. Fair the face of Spring,
When rural songs and odours wake the morn,
To every eye; but how much more to his
Round whom the bed of sickness long diffused
Its melancholy gloom! how doubly fair,
When first with fresh-born vigour he inhales
The balmy breeze, and feels the blessed sun
Warm at his bosom, from the springs of life
Chasing oppressive damps and languid pain!
Or shall I mention, where celestial Truth
Her awful light discloses, to bestow
A more majestic pomp on Beauty's frame?
For man loves knowledge, and the beams of Truth
More welcome touch his understanding's eye,
Than all the blandishments of sound his ear,
Than all of taste his tongue. Nor ever yet
The melting rainbow's vernal-tinctured hues
To me have shown so pleasing, as when first
The hand of Science pointed out the path
In which the sunbeams, gleaming from the west,
Fall on the watery cloud, whose darksome veil
Involves the orient; and that trickling shower,
Piercing through ever crystalline convex
Of clustering dewdrops to their flight opposed
Recoil at length where, concave all behind,
The internal surface of each glassy orb
Repels their forward passage into air;
That thence direct they seek the radiant goal
Rom which their course began; and as they strike
In different lines the gazer's obvious eye,
Assume a different lustre, through the brede
Of colours changing from the splendid rose
To the pale violet's dejected hue
Through all its fabric, Wisdom's artful aim
Disposing every part, and gaining still
By means proportioned her benignant end?
Speak ye the pure delight, whose favoured steps
The lamp of Science through the jealous maze
Of Nature guides, when haply you reveal
Her secret honours: whether in the sky,
The beauteous laws of light, the central powers
That wheel the pensile planets round the year;
Whether in wonders of the rolling deep,
Or smiling fruits of pleasure-pregnant earth,
Or fine-adjusted springs of life and sense,
Ye scan the counsels of their Author's hand.
Rouses the mind's whole fabric; with supplies
Of daily impulse keeps the elastic powers
Intensely poised, and polishes anew
By that collision all the fine machine:
Else rust would rise, and foulness, by degrees
Incumbering, choke at last what heaven designed
For ceaseless motion and a round of toil.
That hour, O long beloved and long deplored!
When blooming youth, nor gentlest wisdom's arts,
Nor Hymen's honours gathered for thy brow,
Availed to snatch thee from the cruel grave;
Thy agonizing looks, thy last farewell
Struck to the inmost feeling of my soul
As with the hand of Death. At once the shade
More hoarser murmuring shook the branches. Dark
As midnight storms, the scene of human things
Appeared before me; deserts, burning sands,
Where the parched adder dies; the frozen south,
And desolation blasting all the west
With rapine and with murder: tyrant power
Here sits enthroned with blood; the baleful charms
Of superstition there infect the skies,
And turn the sun to horror. Gracious Heaven!
What is the life of man? Or cannot these,
Not these portents thy awful will suffice?
That, propagated thus beyond their scope,
They rise to act their cruelties anew
In my afflicted bosom, thus decreed
The universal sensitive of pain,
The wretched heir of evils not its own!"
Disdained the imputation. On the ground
I fixed my eyes, till from his airy couch
He stooped sublime, and touching with his hand
My dazzling forehead, "Raise thy sight," he cried,
"And let thy sense convice thy erring tongue."
I looked, and lo! the former scene was changed.
For verdant alleys and surrounding trees,
Rushed on my sense. 'Twas a horrid pile
Of hills with many a shaggy forest mixed,
With many a sable cliff and glittering stream.
Aloft, recumbent o'er the hanging ridge,
The brown woods waved; while ever-trickling springs
Washed from the naked roots of oak and pine
The crumbling soil; and still at every fall
Down the steep windings of the channelled rock,
Remurmuring, rushed the congregated floods
With hoarser inundation; till at last
They reached a grassy plain, which from the skirts
Of that high desert spread her verdant lap,
And drank the gushing moisture, where confined
In one smooth current, o'er the lilied vale
Clearer than glass it flowed. Autumnal spoils
Luxuriant, spreading to the rays of morn,
Blushed o'er the cliffs, whose half-encircling mound,
As in a sylvan theatre, enclosed
That flowery level. On the river's brink
I spied a fair pavilion which diffused
Its floating umbrage 'mid the silver shade
Of osiers. Now the western sun revealed,
Between two parting cliffs, his golden orb,
And poured across the shadow of the hills,
On rocks and floods, a yellow stream of light
That cheered the solemn scene. My listening powers
Were awed, and every thought in silence hung,
And wondering explectation. Then the voice
Of that celestial power, the mystic show
Declaring, thus my deep attention called:
divine conceptions. Nor content
Of his By one exertion of creating power,
His goodness to reveal; through every age,
Through every moment up the tract of time,
His parent hand, with ever new increase
Of happiness and virtue, has adorned
The vast harmonious frame: his parent hand,
From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore,
To men, to angels, to celestial minds
For ever leads the generations on
To higher scenes of being; while, supplied
From day to day with his enlivening breath,
Inferior orders in succession arise
To fill the void below. As flame ascends,
As bodies to their proper centre move,
As the poised ocean to the attracting moon
Obedient swells, and every headlong stream
Devolves its winding waters to the main;
So all things which have life aspire to God,
The sun of being boundless, unimpaired,
Centre of souls! Nor does the faithful voice
Of Nature cease to prompt their eager steps
Aright; nor is the care of Heaven withheld
From granting to the task proportioned aid.
That, in their stations, all may persevere
For ever nearer to the life divine.
Of consecrated heroes, and of gods.
Nor did the Sire Omnipotent forget
His tender bloom to cherish; nor withheld
Celestial footsteps from his green abode.
Oft from the radiant honours of his throne,
He sent whom most he loved, the sovereign fair,
The effluence of his glory, whom he placed
Before his eyes for ever to behold;
The goddess from whose inspiration flows
The toil of patriots, the delight of friends;
Without whose work divine, in heaven or earth,
Nought lovely, nought propitious comes to pass,
Nor hope, nor praise, nor honour. Her the Sire
Gave it in charge to rear the blooming mind,
The folded powers to open, to direct
The growth luxuriant of his young desires,
And from the laws of this majestic world
To teach him what was good. As thus the nymph
Her daily care attended, by her side
With constant steps her gay companion stayed,
The fair Euprosyne@, the gentle queen
Of smiles, and graceful gladness, and delights
That cheer alike the hearts of mortal men
And powers immortal. See the shining pair:
Behold where, from his dwelling now disclosed,
They quit their youthful charge and seek the skies."
Amid the dusky scene. Eternal youth
O'er all her form its glowing honours breathed:
And smiles eternal from her candid eyes
Flowed, like the dewy lustre of the morn,
Effusive, trembling on the placid waves.
The spring of heaven had shed its blushing spoils
To bind her sable tresses: full diffused,
Her yellow mantle floated in the breeze;
And in her hand she waved a living branch,
Rich with immortal fruits, of power to calm
The wrathful heart, and, from the brightening eyes,
To chase the cloud of sadness. More sublime
The heavenly partner moved. The prime of age
Composed her steps. The presence of a god
High on the circle of her brow enthroned
From each majestic motion darted awe,
Devoted awe! till, cherished by her looks
Benevolent and meek, confiding love
To filial rapture softened all the soul.
Free in her graceful hand, she poised the sword
Of chaste dominion. An heroic crown
Displayed the old simplicity of pomp
Around her honoured head. A matron's robe,
White as the sunshine streams through vernal clouds
Her stately form invested. Hand in hand
The immortal pair forsook the enamelled green,
Ascending slowly. Rays of limpid light
Gleamed round their path; celestial sounds were heard,
And through the fragrant air, ethereal dews
Distilled around them; till at once the clouds,
Disparting wide in midway sky, withdrew
Their airy veil and left a bright expanse
Of empyrean flame, where, spent and drowned,
Afflicted vision plunged in vain to scan
What object it involved. My feeble eyes
Endured not. Bending down to earth i stood,
With dumb attention. Soon a female voice,
As watery murmurs sweet, or warbling shades,
With sacred invocation thus began:
That joy which he pursues he ne'er shall taste.
That power in whom delighteth ne'er behold.
Go then, once more, and happy be thy toil;
Go then; but let not this thy smiling friend
Partake thy footsteps. In her stead, behold!
With thee the son of Nemesis I send;
The fiend abhorred! whose vengeance takes account
Of sacred order's violated laws.
See where he calls thee, burning to be gone,
Fierce to exhaust the tempest of his wrath
On yon devoted head. But thou, my child,
Control his cruel frenzy, and protect
Thy tender charge; that, when despair shall grasp
His agonizing bosom, he may learn,
Alone sufficient, in the hour of ill,
To save his feeble spirit; then confess
Thy genuine honours, O excelling fair !
When all the plagues that wait the deadly will
Of this avenging demon, all the storms
Of night infernal, serve but to display
The energy of thy superior charms,
With mildest awe triumphant o'er his rage,
And shining clearer in the horrid gloom."
Rained bitter tears, and bellowing loud he shook
The void with horror. Silent by his side
The virgin came. No discomposure stirred
Her features. From the glooms which hung around,
No stain of darkness mingled with the beam
Of her divine effulgence. Now they stop
Upon the river bank; and now to hail
His wonted guests; with eager steps advanced
The unsuspecting inmate of the shade.
Is ever good for all; and if for all,
Then good for thee. Nor only by the warmth
And soothing sunshine of delightful things,
Do minds grow up and flourish. Oft, misled
By that bland light, the young unpractised views
Of reason wander through a fatal road,
Far from their native aim: as if to lie
Inglorious in the fragrant shade, and wait
The soft access of ever circling joys,
Were all the end of being. Ask thyself,
This pleasing error, did it never lull
Thy wishes? Has thy constant heart refused
The silken fetters of delicious ease?
Or when divine Euphrosyne@ appeared
Within this dwelling, did not thy desires
Hang far below the measure of thy fate,
Which I revealed before thee? and thy eyes,
Impatient of my counsels, turn away
To drink the soft effusion of her smiles?
Know, then, for this the everlasting Sire
Deprives thee of her presence, and instead,
O wise and still benevolent! ordains
This horrid visage hither to pursue
My steps; that so thy nature may discern
Its real good, and what alone can save
Thy feeble spirit in this hour of ill
From folly and despair. O yet beloved!
Let not this headlong terror quite o'erwhelm
Thy scattered powers; nor fatal deem the rage
Of this tormentor, nor his proud assault,
While I am here to vindicate thy toil,
Brave by thy fears and in thy weakness strong,
This hour he triumphs: but confront his might
And dare him to the combat, then, with ease
Disarmed and quelled, his fierceness he resigns
To bondage and to scorn: while thus inured
By watchful danger, by unceasing toil,
The immortal mind, superior to his fate,
Amid the outrage of external things,
Firm as the solid base of this great world,
Rests on his own foundations. Blow, ye winds!
Ye waves! ye thunders! roll your tempest on;
Shake, ye old pillars of the marble sky!
Till all its orbs and all its worlds of fire
Be loosened from their seats; yet, still serene,
The unconquered mind looks down upon the wreck;
And ever stronger as the storms advance,
Firm through the closing ruin holds his way,
Where Nature calls him to the destined goal."
Say, shall the fair Euphrosyne@ not once
Appear again to charm me? Thou, in heaven!
O thou eternal arbiter of things!
To question thy appointment? Let the frowns
Of this avenger every morn o'ercast
The cheerful dawn, and every evening damp
With double night my dwelling; I will learn
To hail them both, and, unrepining, bear
His hateful presence: but permit my tongue
One glad request, and if my deeds may find
Thy awful eye propitious, Oh! restore
The rosy featured maid; again to cheer
This lonely seat, and bless me with her smiles."
May sometimes dare intrude, yet never more
Shalt thou, descending to the abode of man,
Alone endure the rancour of his arm,
Or leave thy loved Euphrosyne@ behind."
With virtue's kindest looks his aching breast,
And turns his tears to rapture.=Ask the crowd
Which flies impatient from the village walk
To climb the neighbouring cliffs, when, far below,
The cruel winds have hurled upon the coast
Some helpless bark; while sacred Pity melts
The general eye, or Terror's icy hand
Smites their distorted limbs and horrent hair;
While every mother closer to her breast
Catches her child, and, pointing where the waves
Foam through the shattered vessel, shrieks aloud
As one poor wretch that spreads his piteous arms
For succour, swallowed by the roaring surge,
As now another, dashed against the rocks,
Drops lifeless down: Oh! deemest thou indeed
No kind endearment here by Nature given
To mutual terror and compassion's tears?
No sweetly melting softness which attracts,
O'er all that edge of pain, the social powers
To this their proper action and their end?
=Ask thy own heart; when, at the midnight hour,
Slow through that studious gloom, thy pausing eye,
Led by the glimmering taper, moves around
The sacred volumes of the dead, the songs
Of Grecian bards, and records wrote by Fame
For Grecian heroes, where the present power
Of heaven and earth surveys the immortal page,
Even as a father blessing, while he reads
The praises of his son. If then thy soul,
Spurning the yoke of these inglorious days,
Mix in their deeds, and kindle with their flame;
Say, when the prospect blackens on thy view,
When, rooted from the base, heroic states
Mourn in the dust, and tremble at the frown
Of curst ambition; when the pious band
Of youths who fought for freedom and their sires
Lie side by side in gore; when ruffian pride
Usurps the throne of Justice, turns the pomp
Of public power, the majesty of rule,
The sword, the laurel, and the purple robe,
To slavish empty pageants, to adorn
A tyrant's walk, and glitter in the eyes
Of such as bow the knee; when honoured urns
Of patriots and of chiefs, the awful bust
And storied arch, to glut the coward rage
Of regal envy, strew the public way
Whith hallowed ruins; when the Muse's haunt,
The marble porch where Wisdom wont to talk
With Socrates or Tully, hears no more,
Save the hoarse jargon of contentious monks,
Or female Superstition's midnight prayer;
When ruthless Rapine from the hand of Time
Tears the destroying scythe, with surer blow
To sweep the works of glory from their base;
Till Desolation o'er the grass-grown street
Expands his raven wings, and up the wall,
Where senates once the price of monarchs doomed,
Hisses the gliding snake through hoary weeds
That clasp the mouldering column; thus defaced,
Thus widely mournful when the prospect thrills
Thy beating bosom, when the patriot's tear
Starts from thine eye, and thy extended arm
To fire the impious wreath on Philip's brow,
Or dash Octavius from the trophied car;
Say, does thy secret soul repine to taste
The big distress? Or wouldest thou then exchange
Those heart-ennobling sorrows for the lot
Of him who sits amid the gaudy herd
Of mute barbarians, bending to his nod,
And bears aloft his gold-invested front,
And says within himself, "I am a king,
And wherefore should the clamorous voice of woe
Intrude upon mine ear?"= The baleful dregs
Of these late ages, this inglorious draught
Of servitude and folly, have not yet,
Blest be the eternal Ruler of the world,
Defiled to such a depth of sordid shame
The native honours of the human soul,
Nor so effaced the image of its Sire."
And all the teeming regions of the south,
Hold not a quarry, to the curious flight
Of Knowledge, half so tempting or so fair,
As to man. Nor only where the smiles
Of man Love invite; nor only where the applause
Of cordial Honour turns the attentive eye
On Virtue's graceful deeds. For since the course
Of things external acts in different ways
On human apprehensions, as the hand
Of nature tempered to a different frame
Peculiar minds; so, haply, where the powers
Of Fancy neither lessen nor enlarge
The images of things, but paint in all
Their genuine hues, the features which they wore
In Nature; there Opinion will be true,
And Action right . For Action treads the path
In which Opinion says he follows good,
Or flies from evil; and Opinion gives
Report of good or evil; as the scene
Was drawn by Fancy, lovely or deformed:
Where Fancy cheats the intellectual eye,
With glaring colours and distorted lines.
Is there a man , who, at the sound of death,
Sees ghastly shapes of terror conjured up,
And black before him; nought but death-bed groans
And fearful prayers, and plunging from the brink
Of light and being, down the gloomy air;
An unknown depth? Alas! in such a mind,
If no bright forms of excellence attend
The image of his country; nor the pomp
Of sacred senates, nor the guardian voice
Of Justice on her throne, nor aught that wakes
The conscious bosom with a patriot's flame;
Will not Opinion tell him, that to die,
Or stand the hazard, is a greater ill
Than to betray his country? And, in act,
Will he not choose to be a wretch and live?
Here vice begins then. From the enchanting cup
Which Fancy holds to all, the unwary thirst
Of youth oft swallows a Circean draught,
That sheds a baleful tincture o'er the eye
Of Reason, till no longer he discerns,
And only guides to err. Then revel forth
A furious band that spurn him from the throne;
And all is uproar. Thus ambition grasps
The empire of the soul: thus pale Revenge
Unsheaths her murderous dagger; and the hands
Of Lust and Rapine, with unholy arts,
Watch to o'erturn the barrier of the laws
That keeps them from their prey: thus all the plagues
The wicked bear, or, o'er the trembling scene,
The tragic Muse discloses, under shapes
Of honour, safety, pleasure, ease, or pomp,
Stole first into the mind. Yet not by all
Those lying forms which Fancy in the brain
Engenders, are the kindling passions driven
To guilty deeds; nor Reason bound in chains,
That Vice alone may lord it: oft, adorned
With solemn pageants, Folly mounts the throne
And plays her idiot antics, like a queen.
A thousand garbs she wears; a thousand ways
She wheels her giddy empire.=Lo! thus far,
I sing of Nature's charms, and touch, well pleased,
A stricter note: now haply must my song
Unbend her serious measure, and reveal,
In lighter strains, how Folly's awkward arts
Excite impetuous Laughter's gay rebuke;
The sportive province of the comic Muse.
Each would outstrip the other, each prevent
Our careful search, and offer to your gaze,
Unasked, his motley features. Wait awhile,
My curious friends! and let us first arrange
In proper orders your promiscuous throng.
The price of riches and the end of power.
Of Folly. Thy once formidable name
Shall grace her humble records, and be heard
In scoffs and mockery, bandied from the lips
Of all the vengeful brotherhood around,
So oft the patient victims of thy scorn.
Last of the motley bands on whom the power
Of gay Derision bends her hostile aim,
Is that where shameful Ignorance presides.
Beneath her sordid banners, lo! they march
Like blind and lame. Whate'er their doubtful hands
Attempt, Confusion straight appears behind,
And troubles all the work. Thro' many a maze,
Perplexed, they struggle, changing every path,
O'erturning every purpose; then, at last,
Sit down dismayed, and leave the entangled scene
For Scorn to sport with. Such then is the abode
Of Folly in the mind, and such the shapes
In which she governs her obsequious train.
Or whether these, with violation loathed,
Invade resplendent Pomp's imperious mien,
The charms of Beauty, or the boasts of Praise.
Move to your pausing eye. Behold the expanse
Of yon gay landscape, where the silver clouds
Flit o'er the heavens, before the sprightly breeze:
Now their gray cincture skirts the doubtful sun;
Now streams of splendour, thro' their opening veil
Effulgent, sweep from off the gilded lawn
The aerial shadows, on the curling brook,
And on the shady margin's quivering leaves,
With quickest lustre glancing: while you view
The prospect, say, within your cheerful breast,
Play not the lively sense of winning mirth,
With clouds and sunshine chequered; while the round
Of social converse to the inspiring tongue
Of some gay nymph amid her subject train,
Moves all obsequious? Whence is this effect,
This kindred power of such discordant things?
Or flows their semblance from that mystic tone
To which the new-born mind's harmonious powers
At first were strung? Or rather from the links
Which artful custom twines around her frame?
Of the same parent stone, together drew
Its mystic virtue, and at first conspired,
Then, tho' disjoined by kingdoms, tho' the main
Rolled its broad surge betwixt, and different stars
Beheld their wakeful motions, yet preserved
The former friendship, and remembered still
The alliance of their birth: whate'er the line
Which one possessed, nor pause, nor quiet knew
The sure associate, ere, with trembling speed,
He found its path and fixed unerring there.
Such is the secret union, when we feel
A song, a flower, a name, at once restore
Those long connected scenes where first they moved
The attention; backward thro' her mazy walks
Guiding the wanton fancy to her scope,
To temples, courts, or fields, with all the band
Of painted forms, of passions, and designs,
Attendant; whence, if pleasing in itself,
The prospect from that sweet accession gains
Redoubled influence o'er the listening mind.
More faithful keeps the graver's lively trace,
Than he whose birth the sister powers of art
Propitious viewed, and from his genial star
Shed influence to the seeds of fancy kind;
Than his attempered bosom must preserve
The seal of Nature. There alone unchanged,
Her form remains. The balmy walks of May
There breathe perennial sweets: the trembling chord
resounds for ever in the abstracted ear,
Superior to disease, to grief, and time,
Shines with unbating lustre. Thus at length,
Endowed with all that nature can bestow,
The child of fancy oft in silence bends
O'er these mixt treasures of his pregnant breast,
With conscious pride. From them he oft resolves
To frame he knows not what excelling things,
And win he knows not what sublime reward
Of praise and wonder. By degrees, the mind
Feels her young nerves dilate: the plastic powers
Labour for action: blind emotions heave
His bosom; and, with loveliest frenzy caught,
From earth to heaven he rolls his daring eye,
From heaven to earth. Anon ten thousand shapes,
Like spectres trooping to the wizard's call,
Flit swift before him. From the womb of earth,
From ocean's bed they come: the eternal heavens
Disclose their splendours, and the dark abyss
Pour out her births unknown. With fixed gaze
He marks the rising phantoms; now compares
Their different forms; now blends them, now divides,
Enlarges and extenuates by turns;
Opposes, ranges in fantastic bands,
And infinitely varies. Hither now,
Now thither fluctuates his inconstant aim,
With endless choice perplexed. At length his plan
Begins to open. Lucid order dawns;
And, as from Chaos old the jarring seeds
Of nature, at the voice divine, repaired
Each to its place, till rosy earth unveiled
Her fragrant bosom, and the joyful sun
Sprung up the blue serene, by swift degrees
Thus disentangled, his entire design
Emerges. Colours mingle, features join,
and lines converge: the fainter parts retire;
The fairer, eminent in light, advance;
And every image on its neighbour smiles.
Awhile he stands, and with a father's joy
Contemplates. Then, with Promethe@an art,
Into its proper vehicle he breathes
The fair conception; which, embodied thus,
And permanent, becomes to eyes or ears
An object ascertained: while thus informed,
The consonance of sounds, the featured rock,
The shadowy picture and impassioned verse,
Beyond their proper powers, attract the soul
By that expressive semblance; while, in sight
Of Nature's great original, we scan
The lively child of Art; while, line by line,
And feature after feature, we refer
To that sublime exemplar whence it stole
Those animating charms. Thus Beauty's palm
Betwixt them wavering hangs; applauding Love
Doubts where to choose; and mortal man aspires
To tempt creative praise. As when a cloud
Of gathering hail, with limpid crusts of ice
Inclosed, and obvious to the beaming sun,
Collects his large effulgence; straight the heavens
With equal flames present on either hand
The radiant visage: Persia stands at gaze,
Appalled; and on the brink of Ganges waits
The snowy-vested seer, in Mithra's name,
To which the fragrance of the south shall burn,
To which his warbled orisons ascend.
Thus feel her frame expanded, and her powers
Exulting in the splendour she beholds;
Like a young conqueror moving through the pomp
Of some triumphal day. When, joined at eve,
Soft murmuring streams and gales of gentlest breath
Melodious Philomela's wakeful strain
Attemper, could not man's discerning ear
Through all its tones the symphony pursue;
Nor yet this breath divine of nameless joy
Steal thro' his veins and fan the awakened heart;
Mild as the breeze, yet rapturous as the song?
So sweet he feels their influence to attract
The fixed soul, to brighten the dull glooms
Of care, and make the destined road of life
Delightful to his feet. So fables tell,
The adventurous hero, bound on hard exploits,
Beholds with glad surprise, by secret spells
Of some kind sage, the patron of his toils,
A visionary paradise disclosed
Amid the dubious wild; with streams, and shades,
And airy songs, the enchanted landscape smiles,
Cheers his long labours, and renews his frame.
< R 51>
What then is taste, but these internal powers
Active, and strong, and feelingly alive
To each fine impulse? a discerning sense
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust
From things deformed, or disarranged, or gross
In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold,
Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow;
But God alone, when first his active hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul.
He, mighty Parent! wise and just in all,
Free as the vital breeze or light of heaven,
Reveals the charms of Nature. Ask the swain
Who journeys homeward from a summer day's
Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils
And due repose, he loiters to behold
The sunshine gleaming, as thro' amber clouds,
O'er all the western sky: full soon, I ween,
His rude expression and untutored airs,
Beyond the power of language, will unfold
The form of beauty, smiling at his heart.
How lovely! how commanding! But the Heaven
In every breast hath sown these early seeds
Of love and admiration, yet in vain,
Without fair culture's kind parental aid,
Without enlivening suns, and genial showers,
And shelter from the blast, in vain we hope
The tender plant should rear its blooming head,
Or yield the harvest promised in its spring.
Nor yet will every soil with equal stores
His will, obsequious; whether to produce
The olive or the laurel. Different minds
Incline to different objects; one pursues
The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild,
Another sighs for harmony, and grace,
And gentlest beauty. Hence, when lightning fires
The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground;
When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air,
And ocean, groaning from the lowest bed,
Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky;
Amid the mighty uproar, while below
The nations tremble, Shakespeare looks abroad,
From some high cliff, superior, and enjoys
The elemental war. But Waller longs,
All on the margin of some flowering stream,
To spread his careless limbs amid the cool
Of plantain shades, and to the listening deer
The tale of slighted vows and love's disdain
Resound, soft-warbling all the livelong day.
Consenting Zephyr sighs; the weeping rill
Joins in his plaint, melodious; mute the grove;
And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn.
Such and so various are the tastes of men.
Of envied life; though only few possess
Patrician treasures or imperial state;
Yet Nature's care, to all her children just,
With richer treasures and an ampler state,
Endows at large whatever happy man
Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp,
The rural honours his. Whate'er adorns
The princely dome, the column and the arch,
The breathing marbles and the sculptured gold,
Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim,
His tuneful breast enjoys. For him. the Spring
Distills her dews, and from the silken gem
Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch
With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn.
Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings;
And still new beauties meet his lonely walk,
And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze
Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes
The setting sun's effulgence, not a strain
From all the tenants of the warbling shade
Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
Fresh pleasure, unreproved. Nor thence partakes
Fresh pleasure only: for the attentive mind,
By this harmonious action on her powers,
Becomes herself harmonious: wont so long
Of outward things to meditate the charm
sacred order, soon she seeks at home
To find a kindred order, to exert
Within herself this elegance of love,
This fair-inspired delight: her tempered powers
Refine at length, and every passion wears
A chaster, milder, more attractive mien.
But if to ampler prospects, if to gaze
On Nature's form, where, negligent of all
These lesser graces, she assumes the port
Of that Eternal Majesty that weighed
The world's foundations, if to these the mind
Exalts her daring eye, then mightier far
Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms
Of servile custom cramp her generous powers?
Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth
Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down
To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear?
Lo! she appeals to Nature, to the winds
And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course,
The elements and seasons: all declare
For what the Eternal Maker has ordained
The powers of man: we feel within ourselves
His energy divine: he tells the heart,
He meant, he made us to behold and love
What he beholds and loves, the general orb
Of life and being; to be great like him,
Beneficent and active. Thus the men
Whom Nature's works can charm, with God himself
Hold converse; grow familiar day by day,
With his conceptions, act upon his plan,