Poetical Works of Akenside

M >> Mark Akenside >> Poetical Works of Akenside

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

ODE XIII.

TO THE AUTHOR OF MEMOIRS OF THE HOUSE OF BRANDENBURG. 1751.

1 The men renown'd as chiefs of human race,
And born to lead in counsels or in arms,
Have seldom turn'd their feet from glory's chase
To dwell with books, or court the Muse's charms.
Yet, to our eyes if haply time hath brought
Some genuine transcript of their calmer thought,
There still we own the wise, the great, or good;
And Caesar there and Xenophon are seen,
As clear in spirit and sublime of mien,
As on Pharsalian plains, or by the Assyrian flood.

2 Say thou too, Frederic, was not this thy aim?
Thy vigils could the student's lamp engage,
Except for this, except that future Fame
Might read thy genius in the faithful page?
That if hereafter Envy shall presume
With words irreverent to inscribe thy tomb,
And baser weeds upon thy palms to fling,
That hence posterity may try thy reign,
Assert thy treaties, and thy wars explain,
And view in native lights the hero and the king.

3 O evil foresight and pernicious care!
Wilt thou indeed abide by this appeal?
Shall we the lessons of thy pen compare
With private honour or with public zeal?
Whence, then, at things divine those darts of scorn?
Why are the woes, which virtuous men have borne
For sacred truth, a prey to laughter given?
What fiend, what foe of Nature urged thy arm
The Almighty of his sceptre to disarm,
To push this earth adrift and leave it loose from Heaven?

4 Ye godlike shades of legislators old,
Ye who made Rome victorious, Athens wise,
Ye first of mortals with the bless'd enroll'd,
Say, did not horror in your bosoms rise,
When thus, by impious vanity impell'd,
A magistrate, a monarch, ye beheld
Affronting civil order's holiest bands,
Those bands which ye so labour'd to improve,
Those hopes and fears of justice from above,
Which tamed the savage world to your divine commands?

ODE XIV.

THE COMPLAINT.

1 Away! away!
Tempt me no more, insidious love:
Thy soothing sway
Long did my youthful bosom prove:
At length thy treason is discern'd,
At length some dear-bought caution earn'd:
Away! nor hope my riper age to move.

2 I know, I see
Her merit. Needs it now be shown,
Alas, to me?
How often, to myself unknown,
The graceful, gentle, virtuous maid
Have I admired! How often said,
What joy to call a heart like hers one's own!

3 But, flattering god,
O squanderer of content and ease,
In thy abode
Will care's rude lesson learn to please?
O say, deceiver, hast thou won
Proud Fortune to attend thy throne,
Or placed thy friends above her stern decrees?

ODE XV.

ON DOMESTIC MANNERS.

(UNFINISHED.)

1 Meek Honour, female shame,
Oh! whither, sweetest offspring of the sky,
From Albion dost thou fly,
Of Albion's daughters once the favourite fame?
O beauty's only friend,
Who giv'st her pleasing reverence to inspire;
Who selfish, bold desire
Dost to esteem and dear affection turn;
Alas, of thee forlorn
What joy, what praise, what hope can life pretend?

2 Behold, our youths in vain
Concerning nuptial happiness inquire:
Our maids no more aspire
The arts of bashful Hymen to attain;
But with triumphant eyes
And cheeks impassive, as they move along,
Ask homage of the throng.
The lover swears that in a harlot's arms
Are found the self-same charms,
And worthless and deserted lives and dies.

3 Behold, unbless'd at home,
The father of the cheerless household mourns:
The night in vain returns,
For Love and glad Content at distance roam;
While she, in whom his mind
Seeks refuge from the day's dull task of cares,
To meet him she prepares,
Through noise and spleen and all the gamester's art,
A listless, harass'd heart,
Where not one tender thought can welcome find.

4 'Twas thus, along the shore
Of Thames, Britannia's guardian Genius heard,
From many a tongue preferr'd,
Of strife and grief the fond invective lore:
At which the queen divine
Indignant, with her adamantine spear
Like thunder sounding near,
Smote the red cross upon her silver shield,
And thus her wrath reveal'd;
(I watch'd her awful words, and made them mine.)

* * * * *

NOTES.

BOOK FIRST.

ODE XVIII, STANZA II.--2.

Lycurgus the Lacedemonian lawgiver brought into Greece from Asia
Minor the first complete copy of Homer's works. At Plataea was
fought the decisive battle between the Persian army and the united
militia of Greece under Pausanias and Aristides. Cimon the Athenian
erected a trophy in Cyprus for two great victories gained on the
same day over the Persians by sea and land. Diodorus Siculus has
preserved the inscription which the Athenians affixed to the
consecrated spoils, after this great success; in which it is very
remarkable that the greatness of the occasion has raised the manner
of expression above the usual simplicity and modesty of all other
ancient inscriptions. It is this:--

[Greek:
EX. OU. G. EUROPAeN. ASIAS. DIChA. PONTOS. ENEIME.
KAI. POLEAS. ONAeTON. ThOUROS. ARAeS. EPEChEI.
OUDEN. PO. TOIOUTON. EPIChThONION. GENET. ANDRON.
ERGON. EN. AePEIROI. KAI. KATA. PONOTON. AMA.
OIAE. GAR. EN. KUPROI. MAeDOUS. POLLOUS. OLESANTES.
PhOINIKON. EKATON. NAUS. ELON. EN. PELAGEI.
ANDRON. PLAeThOUSAS. META. D. ESENEN. ASIS. UP. AUTON.
PLAeGEIS. AMPhOTERAIS. ChERSI. KRATEI. POLEMOU.]

The following translation is almost literal:--

Since first the sea from Asia's hostile coast
Divided Europe, and the god of war
Assail'd imperious cities; never yet,
At once among the waves and on the shore,
Hath such a labour been achieved by men
Who earth inhabit. They, whose arms the Medes
In Cyprus felt pernicious, they, the same,
Have won from skilful Tyre an hundred ships
Crowded with warriors. Asia groans, in both
Her hands sore smitten, by the might of war.

STANZA II.--3.

Pindar was contemporary with Aristides and Cimon, in whom the glory
of ancient Greece was at its height. When Xerxes invaded Greece,
Pindar was true to the common interest of his country; though his
fellow-citizens, the Thebans, had sold themselves to the Persian king.
In one of his odes he expresses the great distress and anxiety of
his mind, occasioned by the vast preparations of Xerxes against
Greece (_Isthm_. 8). In another he celebrates the victories of
Salamis, Plataea, and Himera (_Pyth_. 1). It will be necessary to
add two or three other particulars of his life, real or fabulous, in
order to explain what follows in the text concerning him. First, then,
he was thought to be so great a favourite of Apollo, that the
priests of that deity allotted him a constant share of their
offerings. It was said of him, as of some other illustrious men,
that at his birth a swarm of bees lighted on his lips, and fed him
with their honey. It was also a tradition concerning him, that Pan
was heard to recite his poetry, and seen dancing to one of his hymns
on the mountains near Thebes. But a real historical fact in his life
is, that the Thebans imposed a large fine upon him on account of the
veneration which he expressed in his poems for that heroic spirit
shown by the people of Athens in defence of the common liberty,
which his own fellow-citizens had shamefully betrayed. And as the
argument of this ode implies, that great poetical talents and high
sentiments of liberty do reciprocally produce and assist each other,
so Pindar is perhaps the most exemplary proof of this connexion which
occurs in history. The Thebans were remarkable, in general, for a
slavish disposition through all the fortunes of their commonwealth;
at the time of its ruin by Philip; and even in its best state, under
the administration of Pelopidas and Epaminondas: and every one knows
they were no less remarkable for great dulness and want of all genius.
That Pindar should have equally distinguished himself from the rest
of his fellow-citizens in both these respects seems somewhat
extraordinary, and is scarce to be accounted for but by the
preceding observation.

STANZA III.--3.

Alluding to his defence of the people of England against Salmasins.
See particularly the manner in which he himself speaks of that
undertaking, in the introduction to his reply to Morus.

STANZA IV.--3.

Edward the Third; from whom descended Henry Hastings, third Earl of
Huntingdon, by the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, brother to
Edward the Fourth.

STANZA V.--3.

At Whittington, a village on the edge of Scarsdale in Derbyshire,
the Earls of Devonshire and Danby, with the Lord Delamere, privately
concerted the plan of the Revolution. The house in which they met is
at present a farmhouse, and the country people distinguish the room
where they sat by the name of _the plotting parlour_.

* * * * *

BOOK SECOND.

ODE VII. STANZA II.--1.

Mr. Locke died in 1704, when Mr. Hoadly was beginning to distinguish
himself in the cause of civil and religious liberty: Lord Godolphin
in 1712, when the doctrines of the Jacobite faction were chiefly
favoured by those in power: Lord Somers in 1716, amid the practices
of the nonjoining clergy against the Protestant establishment; and
Lord Stanhope in 1721, during the controversy with the lower house
of convocation.

ODE X. STANZA V.

During Mr. Pope's war with Theobald, Concanen, and the rest of their
tribe, Mr. Warburton, the present Lord Bishop of Gloucester, did
with great zeal cultivate their friendship, having been introduced,
forsooth, at the meetings of that respectable confederacy--a favour
which he afterwards spoke of in very high terms of complacency and
thankfulness. At the same time, in his intercourse with them, he
treated Mr. Pope in a most contemptuous manner, and as a writer
without genius. Of the truth of these assertions his lordship can
have no doubt, if he recollects his own correspondence with Concanen,
a part of which is still in being, and will probably be remembered
as long as any of this prelate's writings.

ODE XIII.

In the year 1751 appeared a very splendid edition, in quarto, of
'Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de la Maison de Brandebourg,
a Berlin et a la Haye,' with a privilege, signed Frederic, the same
being engraved in imitation of handwriting. In this edition, among
other extraordinary passages, are the two following, to which the
third stanza of this ode more particularly refers:--

'Il se fit une migration' (the author is speaking of what happened
at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes), 'dont on n'avoit guere vu
d'exemples dans l'histoire: un peuple entier sortit du royaume par
l'esprit de parti en haine du pape, et pour recevoir sous un autre
ciel la communion sous les deux especes: quatre cens mille ames
s'expatrierent ainsi et abandonnerent tous leur biens pour detonner
dans d'autres temples les vieux pseaumes de Clement Marot.'--Page 163.

'La crainte donna le jour a la credulite, et l'amour propre
interessa bientot le ciel au destin des hommes.'--Page 242.

HYMN TO THE NAIADS. 1746.

ARGUMENT.

The Nymphs, who preside over springs and rivulets, are addressed at
daybreak, in honour of their several functions, and of the relations
which they bear to the natural and to the moral world. Their origin
is deduced from the first allegorical deities, or powers of nature,
according to the doctrine of the old mythological poets, concerning
the generation of the gods and the rise of things. They are then
successively considered, as giving motion to the air and exciting
summer breezes; as nourishing and beautifying the vegetable creation;
as contributing to the fulness of navigable rivers, and consequently
to the maintenance of commerce; and by that means to the maritime
part of military power. Next is represented their favourable
influence upon health when assisted by rural exercise, which
introduces their connexion with the art of physic, and the happy
effects of mineral medicinal springs. Lastly, they are celebrated
for the friendship which the Muses bear them, and for the true
inspiration which temperance only can receive, in opposition to the
enthusiasm of the more licentious poets.

O'er yonder eastern bill the twilight pale
Walks forth from darkness; and the God of day,
With bright Astraea seated by his side,
Waits yet to leave the ocean. Tarry, Nymphs,
Ye Nymphs, ye blue-eyed progeny of Thames,
Who now the mazes of this rugged heath
Trace with your fleeting steps; who all night long
Repeat, amid the cool and tranquil air,
Your lonely murmurs, tarry, and receive
My offer'd lay. To pay you homage due, 10
I leave the gates of sleep; nor shall my lyre
Too far into the splendid hours of morn
Engage your audience; my observant hand
Shall close the strain ere any sultry beam
Approach you. To your subterranean haunts
Ye then may timely steal; to pace with care
The humid sands; to loosen from the soil
The bubbling sources; to direct the rills
To meet in wider channels; or beneath
Some grotto's dripping arch, at height of noon 20
To slumber, shelter'd from the burning heaven.

Where shall my song begin, ye Nymphs, or end?
Wide is your praise and copious--first of things,
First of the lonely powers, ere Time arose,
Were Love and Chaos. Love,[A] the sire of Fate; [B]
Elder than Chaos. [C] Born of Fate was Time, [D]
Who many sons and many comely births
Devour'd, [E] relentless father; till the child
Of Rhea [F] drove him from the upper sky, [G]
And quell'd his deadly might. Then social reign'd 30
The kindred powers, [H] Tethys, and reverend Ops,
And spotless Vesta; while supreme of sway
Remain'd the Cloud-Compeller. From the couch
Of Tethys sprang the sedgy-crowned race, [I]
Who from a thousand urns, o'er every clime,
Send tribute to their parent; and from them
Are ye, O Naiads: [J] Arethusa fair,
And tuneful Aganippe; that sweet name,
Bandusia; that soft family which dwelt
With Syrian Daphne; [K] and the honour'd tribes 40
Beloved of Paeon. [L] Listen to my strain,
Daughters of Tethys: listen to your praise.

You, Nymphs, the winged offspring, [M] which of old
Aurora to divine Astraeus bore,
Owns, and your aid beseecheth. When the might
Of Hyperion, [N] from his noontide throne,
Unbends their languid pinions, aid from you
They ask; Pavonius and the mild South-west
Prom you relief implore. Your sallying streams [O]
Fresh vigour to their weary wings impart. 50
Again they fly, disporting; from the mead
Half-ripen'd and the tender blades of corn,
To sweep the noxious mildew; or dispel
Contagious steams, which oft the parched earth
Breathes on her fainting sons. From noon to eve.
Along the river and the paved brook,
Ascend the cheerful breezes: hail'd of bards
Who, fast by learned Cam, the AEolian lyre
Solicit; nor unwelcome to the youth
Who on the heights of Tibur, all inclined 60
O'er rushing Arno, with a pious hand
The reverend scene delineates, broken fanes,
Or tombs, or pillar'd aqueducts, the pomp
Of ancient Time; and haply, while he scans
The ruins, with a silent tear revolves
The fame and fortune of imperious Rome.

You too, O Nymphs, and your unenvious aid
The rural powers confess, and still prepare
For you their choicest treasures. Pan commands,
Oft as the Delian king [P] with Sirius holds 70
The central heavens, the father of the grove
Commands his Dryads over your abodes
To spread their deepest umbrage. Well the god
Remembereth how indulgent ye supplied
Your genial dews to nurse them in their prime.

Pales, the pasture's queen, where'er ye stray,
Pursues your steps, delighted; and the path
With living verdure clothes. Around your haunts
The laughing Chloris, [Q] with profusest hand,
Throws wide her blooms, her odours. Still with you 80
Pomona seeks to dwell; and o'er the lawns,
And o'er the vale of Richmond, where with Thames
Ye love to wander, Amalthea [R] pours,
Well-pleased, the wealth of that Ammonian horn,
Her dower; unmindful of the fragrant isles
Nysaean or Atlantic. Nor canst thou
(Albeit oft, ungrateful, thou dost mock
The beverage of the sober Naiad's urn,
O Bromius, O Lenaean), nor canst thou
Disown the powers whose bounty, ill repaid, 90
With nectar feeds thy tendrils. Yet from me,
Yet, blameless Nymphs, from my delighted lyre,
Accept the rites your bounty well may claim,
Nor heed the scoffings of the Edonian band. [S]

For better praise awaits you. Thames, your sire,
As down the verdant slope your duteous rills
Descend, the tribute stately Thames receives,
Delighted; and your piety applauds;
And bids his copious tide roll on secure,
For faithful are his daughters; and with words 100
Auspicious gratulates the bark which, now
His banks forsaking, her adventurous wings
Yields to the breeze, with Albion's happy gifts
Extremest isles to bless. And oft at morn,
When Hermes, [T] from Olympus bent o'er earth
To bear the words of Jove, on yonder hill
Stoops lightly sailing; oft intent your springs
He views: and waving o'er some new-born stream
His bless'd pacific wand, 'And yet,' he cries,
'Yet,' cries the son of Maia, 'though recluse 110
And silent be your stores, from you, fair Nymphs,
Flows wealth and kind society to men.
By you my function and my honour'd name
Do I possess; while o'er the Boetic rale,
Or through the towers of Memphis, or the palms
By sacred Ganges water'd, I conduct
The English merchant; with the buxom fleece
Of fertile Ariconium while I clothe
Sarmatian kings; or to the household gods
Of Syria, from the bleak Cornubian shore, 120
Dispense the mineral treasure [U] which of old
Sidonian pilots sought, when this fair land
Was yet unconscious of those generous arts,
Which wise Phoenicia from their native clime
Transplanted to a more indulgent heaven.'

Such are the words of Hermes: such the praise,
O Naiads, which from tongues celestial waits
Your bounteous deeds. From bounty issueth power:
And those who, sedulous in prudent works,
Relieve the wants of nature, Jove repays 130
With noble wealth, and his own seat on earth,
Pit judgments to pronounce, and curb the might
Of wicked men. Your kind unfailing urns
Not vainly to the hospitable arts
Of Hermes yield their store. For, O ye Nymphs,
Hath he not won [V] the unconquerable queen
Of arms to court your friendship You she owns
The fair associates who extend her sway
Wide o'er the mighty deep; and grateful things
Of you she littereth, oft as from the shore 140
Of Thames, or Medway's vale, or the green banks
Of Vecta, she her thundering navy leads
To Calpe's [W] foaming channel, or the rough
Cantabrian surge; her auspices divine
Imparting to the senate and the prince
Of Albion, to dismay barbaric kings,
The Iberian, or the Celt. The pride of kings
Was ever scorn'd by Pallas; and of old
Rejoiced the virgin, from the brazen prow
Of Athens o'er AEgina's gloomy surge, [X] 150
To drive her clouds and storms; o'erwhelming all
The Persian's promised glory, when the realms
Of Indus and the soft Ionian clime,
When Libya's torrid champaign and the rocks
Of cold Imaues join'd their servile bands,
To sweep the sons of Liberty from earth.
In vain; Minerva on the bounding prow
Of Athens stood, and with the thunder's voice
Denounced her terrors on their impious heads,
And shook her burning aegis. Xerxes saw; [Y] 160
From Heracleum, on the mountain's height
Throned in his golden car, he knew the sign
Celestial; felt unrighteous hope forsake
His faltering heart, and turn'd his face with shame.

Hail, ye who share the stern Minerva's power;
Who arm the hand of Liberty for war,
And give to the renown'd Britannic name
To awe contending monarchs: yet benign,
Yet mild of nature, to the works of peace
More prone, and lenient of the many ills 170
Which wait on human life. Your gentle aid
Hygeia well can witness; she who saves,
From poisonous dates and cups of pleasing bane,
The wretch, devoted to the entangling snares
Of Bacchus and of Comus. Him she leads
To Cynthia's lonely haunts. To spread the toils,
To beat the coverts, with the jovial horn
At dawn of day to summon the loud hounds,
She calls the lingering sluggard from his dreams,
And where his breast may drink the mountain breeze, 180
And where the fervour of the sunny vale
May beat upon his brow, through devious paths
Beckons his rapid courser. Nor when ease,
Cool ease and welcome slumbers have becalm'd
His eager bosom, does the queen of health
Her pleasing care withhold. His decent board
She guards, presiding, and the frugal powers
With joy sedate leads in; and while the brown
Ennaean dame with Pan presents her stores,
While changing still, and comely in the change, 190
Vertumnus and the Hours before him spread
The garden's banquet, you to crown his feast,
To crown his feast, O Naiads, you the fair
Hygeia calls; and from your shelving seats,
And groves of poplar, plenteous cups ye bring,
To slake his veins, till soon a purer tide
Flows down those loaded channels, washeth off
The dregs of luxury, the lurking seeds
Of crude disease, and through the abodes of life
Sends vigour, sends repose. Hail, Naiads, hail! 200
Who give to labour, health; to stooping age,
The joys which youth had squander'd. Oft your urns
Will I invoke; and frequent in your praise,
Abash the frantic thyrsus [Z] with my song.

For not estranged from your benignant arts
Is he, the god, to whose mysterious shrine
My youth was sacred, and my votive cares
Belong, the learned Paeon. Oft when all
His cordial treasures he hath search'd in vain;
When herbs, and potent trees, and drops of balm 210
Rich with the genial influence of the sun
(To rouse dark fancy from her plaintive dreams,
To brace the nerveless arm, with food to win
Sick appetite, or hush the unquiet breast
Which pines with silent passion), he in vain
Hath proved; to your deep mansions he descends.
Your gates of humid rock, your dim arcades,
He entereth; where empurpled veins of ore
Gleam on the roof; where through the rigid mine
Your trickling rills insinuate. There the god 220
From your indulgent hands the streaming bowl
Wafts to his pale-eyed suppliants; wafts the seeds
Metallic and the elemental salts
Wash'd from the pregnant glebe. They drink, and soon
Flies pain; flies inauspicious care; and soon
The social haunt or unfrequented shade
Hears Io, Io Paean, [AA] as of old,
When Python fell. And, O propitious Nymphs,
Oft as for hapless mortals I implore
Your sultry springs, through every urn, 230
Oh, shed your healing treasures! With the first
And finest breath, which from the genial strife
Of mineral fermentation springs, like light
O'er the fresh morning's vapours, lustrate then
The fountain, and inform the rising wave.

My lyre shall pay your bounty. Scorn not ye
That humble tribute. Though a mortal hand
Excite the strings to utterance, yet for themes
Not unregarded of celestial powers,
I frame their language; and the Muses deign 240
To guide the pious tenor of my lay.
The Muses (sacred by their gifts divine)
In early days did to my wondering sense
Their secrets oft reveal; oft my raised ear
In slumber felt their music; oft at noon,
Or hour of sunset, by some lonely stream,
In field or shady grove, they taught me words
Of power from death and envy to preserve
The good man's name. Whence yet with grateful mind,
And offerings unprofaned by ruder eye, 250
My vows I send, my homage, to the seats
Of rocky Cirrha, [BB] where with you they dwell,
Where you their chaste companions they admit,
Through all the hallow'd scene; where oft intent,
And leaning o'er Castalia's mossy verge,
They mark the cadence of your confluent urns,
How tuneful, yielding gratefullest repose
To their consorted measure, till again,
With emulation all the sounding choir,
And bright Apollo, leader of the song, 260
Their voices through the liquid air exalt,
And sweep their lofty strings; those powerful strings
That charm the mind of gods, [CC] that fill the courts
Of wide Olympus with oblivion sweet
Of evils, with immortal rest from cares,
Assuage the terrors of the throne of Jove,
And quench the formidable thunderbolt
Of unrelenting fire. With slacken'd wings,
While now the solemn concert breathes around,
Incumbent o'er the sceptre of his lord 270
Sleeps the stern eagle, by the number'd notes,
Possess'd, and satiate with the melting tone,
Sovereign of birds. The furious god of war,
His darts forgetting, and the winged wheels
That bear him vengeful o'er the embattled plain,
Relents, and soothes his own fierce heart to ease,
Most welcome ease. The sire of gods and men
In that great moment of divine delight,
Looks down on all that live; and whatsoe'er
He loves not, o'er the peopled earth and o'er 280
The interminated ocean, he beholds
Cursed with abhorrence by his doom severe,
And troubled at the sound. Ye, Naiads, ye
With ravish'd ears the melody attend
Worthy of sacred silence. But the slaves
Of Bacchus with tempestuous clamours strive
To drown the heavenly strains, of highest Jove
Irreverent, and by mad presumption fired
Their own discordant raptures to advance
With hostile emulation. Down they rush 290
From Nysa's vine-empurpled cliff, the dames
Of Thrace, the Satyrs, and the unruly Fauns,
With old Silenus, reeling through the crowd
Which gambols round him, in convulsions wild
Tossing their limbs, and brandishing in air
The ivy-mantled thyrsus, or the torch
Through black smoke flaming, to the Phrygian pipe's [DD]
Shrill voice, and to the clashing cymbals, mix'd
With shrieks and frantic uproar. May the gods
From every unpolluted ear avert 300
Their orgies! If within the seats of men,
Within the walls, the gates, where Pallas holds [EE]
The guardian key, if haply there be found
Who loves to mingle with the revel-band
And hearken to their accents, who aspires
From such instructors to inform his breast
With verse, let him, fit votarist, implore
Their inspiration. He perchance the gifts
Of young Lyaeus, and the dread exploits,
May sing in aptest numbers; he the fate 310
Of sober Pentheus, [FF] he the Paphian rites,
And naked Mars with Cytherea chain'd,
And strong Alcides in the spinster's robes,
May celebrate, applauded. But with you,
O Naiads, far from that unhallow'd rout,
Must dwell the man whoe'er to praised themes
Invokes the immortal Muse. The immortal Muse
To your calm habitations, to the cave
Corycian[GG] or the Delphic mount, [HH] will guide
His footsteps, and with your unsullied streams 320
His lips will bathe; whether the eternal lore
Of Themis, or the majesty of Jove,
To mortals he reveal; or teach his lyre
The unenvied guerdon of the patriot's toils,
In those unfading islands of the bless'd,
Where sacred bards abide. Hail, honour'd Nymphs;
Thrice hail! For you the Cyrenaic shell, [II]
Behold, I touch, revering. To my songs
Be present ye with favourable feet,
And all profaner audience far remove. 330

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20