There let Hymen oft appear In faffron robe, with taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mafk, and antique pageantry; Such fights as youthful poets dream On fummer eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Johnson's learned fock be on, Or sweetest Shakespear, fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever against eating cares, Lap me in foft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, Such as the melting foul may pierce In notes, with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden foul of harmony;
That Orpheus' felf may heave his head
From golden flumber on a bed
Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear
Such ftrains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite fet free
His half regain'd Eurydice.
Thefe delights if thou canft give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
ENCE vain deluding joys,`
The brood of folly without father bred,
How little you bested,
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys?
Dwell in fome idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy fhapes poffefs,
As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that people the funbeams,
Or likeft hovering dreams
The fickle penfioners of Morpheus' train.
But hail, thou goddefs, fage and holy!
Hail, divineft Melancholy!
Whofe faintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human fight,
And therefore to our weaker view.
O'erlaid with black, ftaid wifdom's hue
Black, but fuch as in esteem
Prince Memnon's fifter might befeem:
Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that, Itrove
To fet her beauties' praife above
The fea-nymphs, and their powers offended;
Yet thou art higher far descended,
Thee bright-hair'd Vesta long of yore
To folitary Saturn bore;
His daughter fhe (in Saturn's reign
Such mixture was not held a stain).
Oft in glimmering bow'rs and glades
He met her, and in fecret fhades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, penfive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And fable stole of Cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent fhoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step and mufing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy wrapt foul fitting in thine eyes:
There held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a fad leaden downward caft
Thou fix them on the earth as faft;
And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet,
Spare Faft, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Mufes in a ring
Aye round about Jove's altar fing:
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure ;
But first, and chiefeft, with thee bring
Him that yon' foars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The Cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hift along,
'Lefs Philomel will deign a fong,
In her fweeteft, faddeft plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night;
While Cynthia checks her dragon yake,
Gently o'er the accustomed oak;
Sweet bird that fhunn'ft the noife of folly,
Moft mufical, most melancholy!
Thee, chantrefs, oft the woods among
I woo to hear thy even fong;
And miffing thee, I walk unfeen
On the dry smooth fhaven green,
To behold the wand'ring moon
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led aftray
Through the heav'n's wide pathlefs way,
And oft, as if her head fhe bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud?
Oft on a plat of rifing ground,
I hear the far-off curfew found,
Over fome wide water'd fhore
Swinging flow with fullen roar:
Or if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all refort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,.
Or let bellman's drowsy charm,
To blefs the door from nightly harm;
Or let my lamp at midnight hour
Be feen in fome high lonely tow'r,
Where I may oft outwatch the bear,
With thrice great Hermes, or unfphere
The fpirit of Plato to unfold
What worlds, or what vast regions hold
Th' immortal mind that hath forfook
Her mansion in the fleshy nook; wa
And of thofe demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true confent
With planet, or with element.
Some time let gorgeous Tragedy
In fcepter'd pall come fweeping by,
Prefenting Thebes' or Pelop's line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the bufkin ftage.
But, O fad Virgin, that thy power
Might raife Mufæus from his bower,
Or bid the foul of Orpheus fing,
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
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