Our youths, enamoured of the fair,
Play with the tangles of her hair,
Till, in one loud applauding sound,
The nations shout to her around,
O how supremely art thou blest,
Thou, lady, thou shalt rule the west!

ODE.

[Written in the beginning of the year 1746.]

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blessed!
When spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

ODE TO EVENING.

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,

May hope, chaste eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,
Thy springs, and dying gales,

O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With brede ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short, shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing;
Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,

Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid composed,

To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,
May, not unseemly, with its stillness suit,

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant hours, and elves
Who slept in flowers the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,
The pensive pleasures sweet
Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile,
Or upland fallows grey

Reflect its last cool gleam.

But when chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut,

That from the mountain's side,
Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires ;
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest eve!
While summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed,
Shall fancy, friendship, science, rose-lipped health,
Thy gentlest influence own,

And hymn thy favourite name!

THE PASSIONS.

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the muse's painting :
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined;
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for madness ruled the hour)
Would prove his own expressive power.

First Fear, his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid,
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
Even at the sound himself had made.
VOL. III.
U

Next Anger rushed; his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woful measures wan Despair

Low, sullen sounds his grief beguiled; A solemn, strange, and mingled air;

'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy delightful measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong;

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,

She called on Echo still, through all the song;
And, where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.

And longer had she sung;—but, with a frown,

Revenge impatient rose:

He threw his blood-stained sword, in thunder, down;
And with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!
And, ever and anon, he beat

The doubling drum, with furious heat;

And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,

Dejected Pity, at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,

While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from

his head.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed;
Sad proof of thy distressful state;

Of differing themes the veering song was mixed;

And now it courted love, now raving called on hate.

With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sat retired;
And, from her wild sequestered seat,

In notes by distance made more sweet,

Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul:

And, dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels joined the sound;

Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay, Round an holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace, and lonely musing

In hollow murmurs died away.

But O! how altered was its sprightlier tone,
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulder flung,

Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,
The hunter's call, to faun and dryad known!
The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen,
Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen,

Peeping from forth their alleys green:

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear;

And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear. Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:

He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addrest; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,

Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best;
They would have thought who heard the strain
They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids,
Amidst the festal sounding shades,
To some unwearied minstrel dancing,
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,

Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round:
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
And he, amidst his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.