With antic sports and blue-ey'd pleasures,
Frisking light in frolic measures;
Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meet:
To brisk notes in cadence beating
Glance their many-twinkling feet.
Slow-melting strains their queen's approach declare :
Where'er she turns, the Graces homage pay,
With arts sublime, that float upon the air,

gliding state she wins her easy way:
O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move
The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of Love.

II.

Man's feeble race what ills await,

Labour and Penury, the racks of Pain,

Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
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,

Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of Joy;

This pencil take," she said, "whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year :

• Shakspeare,

Of Horrour that, and thrilling fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears."

Nor second he †, that rode sublime

Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
The secrets of th' abyss to spy.

He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time :
The living throne, the sapphire-blaze,
Where angels tremble, while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Clos'd his eyes in endless night.

Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car,
Wide o'er the fields of Glory bear

[ing pace. With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resound

Two coursers of ethereal race t,

Bright-ey'd Fancy, hovering o'er,
Scatters from her pictur'd urn

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

But ah! 't is heard no more —

ODE ON THE SPRING.

Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Fair Venus' train appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,

The untaught harmony of Spring:
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade;
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclin'd in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care :
The panting herds repose:

Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!

+ Milton.

Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes.

While bright-ey'd Science watches round:
Hence, away, 't is holy ground!"

To bless the place, where on their opening soul
First the genuine ardour stole.

Where willowy Camus lingers with delight!
Oft at the blush of dawn

'T was Milton struck the deep-ton'd shell,
And, as the choral warblings round him swell,
Meek Newton's self bends from his state sublime,
And nods his hoary head, and listens to the rhyme.

"Ye brown o'er-arching groves, That Contemplation loves,

"HENCE, avaunt, ('t is holy ground,)
Comus and his midnight-crew,
And Ignorance with looks profound,

And dreaming Sloth of pallid hue,
Mad Sedition's cry profane,
Servitude that hugs her chain,
Nor in these consecrated bowers

† Mary de Valentia, Countess of Pembroke, daughter of Guy de Chatillon, Comte de St. Paul

Let painted Flattery hide her serpent-train in flowers. in France: of whom tradition says, that her hus

Nor Envy base, nor creeping Gain,
Dare the Muse's walk to stain,

band, Audemar de Valentia, Earl of Pembroke, ws
slain at a tournament on the day of his nuptials
She was the foundress of Pembroke College or
Hall, under the name of Aula Mariæ de Valentis

And either Henry there,

The murder'd saint, and the majestic lord,
That broke the bonds of Rome.

(Their tears, their little triumphs o'er,
Their human passions now no more,
Save Charity, that glows beyond the tomb),
All that on Granta's fruitful plain
Rich streams of regal bounty pour'd,

And bade these aweful fanes and turrets rise,
To hail their Fitzroy's festal morning come;
And thus they speak in soft accord
The liquid language of the skies.

"What is grandeur, what is power?
Heavier toil, superior pain.
What the bright reward we gain?
The grateful memory of the good.
Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,
The bee's collected treasure's sweet,
Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still small voice of Gratitude."

From yonder realms of empyrean day
Bursts on my ear th' indignant lay:
There sit the sainted sage, the bard divine,
The few, whom genius gave to shine

Through every unborn age and undiscover'd clime. princely. She founded Clare-Hall.

Rapt in celestial transport they,
Yet hither oft a glance from high
They send of tender sympathy

Edward the Third; who added the fleur-delis of France to the arms of England. He founded Trinity College.

Elizabeth de Burg, Countess of Clare, was wife of John de Burg, son and heir of the Earl of Ulster, and daughter of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, by Joan of Acres, daughter of Edward the First. Hence the poet gives her the epithet of

§ Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry the Sixth, foundress of Queen's College. The poet had cele brated her conjugal fidelity in a former ode.

|| Elizabeth Widville, wife of Edward the Fourth (hence called the paler rose, as being of the house of York). She added to the foundation of Margaret of Anjou.

Henry the Sixth and Eighth. The former the founder of King's, the latter the greatest benefactor to Trinity College.