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Lo, in the Vale of Years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their Queen:
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:

Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,

The' unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since Sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more ;-where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

TO ADVERSITY.

Znva

Τον Φρίνειν Βροτους οδο
σαντα, τω παθει μαθαν

Θεντα κυρίως εχειν.

ESCHYLUS, in Agamemnone.

DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,

Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge and torturing hour The bad affright, afflict the best!

Bound in thy adamantine chain,

The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan,

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, design'd,
To thee he gave the heav'nly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:

What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.

Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.

Light they disperse; and with them go
The summer friend, the flattering foe;
By vain Prosperity receiv'd,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believ❜d.

Wisdom in sable garb array'd,

Immers'd in rapturous thought profound,

And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground,

Still on thy solemn steps attend:

Warm Charity, the general friend,

With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head,

Dread Goddess, lay thy chast'ning hand!

Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen)

With thundering voice, and threatening mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty:

Thy form benign, oh Goddess! wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there

To soften, not to wound my heart.
The generous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love, and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a man.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A PINDAKIC ODE.

Φωναντα συνετοίσιν ες

Δε το σαν ερμητων
Χατίζα.

I. 1.

PINDAR, Olymp. II.

AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake,*

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs

A thousand rills their mazy progress take:

Awake, my glory: awake, lute and harp-David's Psalms. Pindar styles his own poetry, with its musical accompaniments, Αιολι μολπη Αιολίδες χόρδας, Αιολίδων ωνται, αυλων, Folian song, Eolian strings, the breath of the Eolian flute.

The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are here united.

The laughing flowers, that round them blow,
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.

Now the rich stream of Music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,

Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign; Now rolling down the steep amain,

Headlong, impetuous, see it pour :

[roar.

The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the

I. 2.

Oh! Sovereign of the willing soul,* Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares

And frantic Passions hear thy soft control. On Thracia's hills the Lord of War

Has curb'd the fury of his car,

And drop'd his thirsty lance at thy command.
Perching on the sceptred handt

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
With ruffled plumes and flagging wind:
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie
The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

The various sources of poetry, which give life and lustre to all it touches, are here described; as well in its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with all the pomp of diction, and luxuriant harmony of numbers, as in its more rapid and irresistible course, when swoln and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous passions.

* Power of harmony to calm the turbulent passions of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar.

+ This is a weak imitation of some beautiful lines in the same ode,

I. 3.

Thee, the voice, the dance, obey,*
Temper'd to thy warbled lay.
O'er Idalia's velvet-green

The rosy-crowned Loves are seen
On Cytherea's day

With antic Sport, 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.f
Slow melting strains theirQueen's approach declare:
Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay
With arms sublime, that float upon the air,
In 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. 1.

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 !

* Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body.

† Μαρμαρυγας θηείτο πόδων θαύμαζε δε θυμω.

* Δαμπει δ' επι πορφυρέησι
Παρείησι φως ερωτα.

Homer, Od..

Phrynicus apud Athenæum.

To compensate the real or imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given us by the same Providence that sends the day, by its cheerful presence, to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night.

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