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, And from her wild sequestered seat, In notes by distance made more sweet, And, dashing soft from rocks around, Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or o'er some haunted stream with fond delay, Round a 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 chasteeyed queen, Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen, Peeping from forth their alleys green; Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear, spear. Last came Joy's ecstatic trial: First to the lively pipe his hand addrest, They would have thought, who heard the They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids, 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 un bound; And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, O Music, sphere-descended maid, Why, goddess, why to us denied, Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime! ODE TO EVENING. Faught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Like thy own brawling 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, To breathe some softened strain, |