The fond complaint, my song, disprove,
And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse?
Night, and all her sickly dews,

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,
He gives to range the dreary sky:

Till down the eastern cliffs afar

Hyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring shafts of war.

II. 2.

'In climes beyond the solar road,

Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
The Muse has broke the twilight-gloom

To cheer the shivering native's dull abode.
And oft, beneath the od'rous shade

Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat

In loose numbers wildly sweet

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,

Glory pursue, and generous Shame,

Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

II. 3.

Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,

Isles, that crown th' Ægean deep,

Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,

Or where Mæander's amber waves

In lingering lab'rinths creep,

' Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations: its connexion with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. [See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welch Fragments, the Lapland and American songs.]

* Progress of poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surry, and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there; Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them: but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since.

How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute, but to the voice of Anguish?
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breath'd around;

Ev'ry shade and hallow'd fountain
Murmur'd deep a solemn sound:

Till the sad Nine in Greece's evil hour
Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.
Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant-power,
And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,

They sought, oh Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast.

Far from the sun and summer-gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,
To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: the dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smil'd.
This pencil take (she said) whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year:

Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of Joy;

Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,

Or

ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.

III. 2.

Nor second he,' that rode sublime

Upon the seraph-wings of Extasy,
The secrets of th' abyss to spy.

He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the sapphire-blaze,

Where angels tremble while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Clos'd his eyes in endless night.

i Milton.

↳ Shakespear.

Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car,
Wide o'er the fields of Glory bear

Two coursers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder cloth'd and long-resounding pace.

III. 3.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!

Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er

Scatters from her pictur'd urn

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

But ah! 'tis heard no more-
Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit
Wakes thee now? though he inherit
Nor the pride, or ample pinion,
'That the Theban eagle bear
Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air:

Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms, as glitter in the Muse's ray
With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun :
Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

Beneath the good how far-but far above the great.

* We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind, than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day: for Cowley (who had his merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason indeed of late days has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in some of his choruses-above all in the last of Caractacus,

1 Pindar.

Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread? &c.

ODE VI.

THE BAR D.

PINDARIC.m

I. 1.

RUIN seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait,

Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing
They mock the air with idle state.

Helm, nor "hauberk's twisted mail,

Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!'
Such were the sounds, that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout P Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance:

To arms! cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quiv'ring lance.

This Ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward the First, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into his hands to be put to death.

■ The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail, that sate close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion.

• Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract, which the Welch themselves call Craigian-eryri: it included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the river Conway. R. Hygden, speaking of the castle of Conway, built by King Edward the First, says, “ Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum montis Erery;" and Matthew of Westminster, (ad ann. 1283,)" Apud Aberconway ad pedes montis Snowdoniæ fecit erigi castrum forte."

P Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, sonin-law to King Edward.

Edmond de Mortimer, lord of Wigmore.

They both were lords-marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and probably accompanied the King in this expedition.

I. 2.

On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Robed in the sable garb of woe,
With haggard eyes the poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair

Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air)
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.,

'Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert cave,
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
O'er thee, oh King! their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe ;
Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,

To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

I. 3.

Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,

That hush'd the stormy main :

Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:

Mountains, ye mourn in vain

Modred, whose magic song

Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topp'd head.

* On dreary Arvon's shore they lie,

Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale:

Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail;
The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by.
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear, as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country's cries---

The shores of Caernarvonshire opposite to the isle of Anglesey.

• Cambden and others observe, that eagles used annually to build their aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some think) were named by the Welch Craigian-eryri, or the crags of the eagles. At this day (I am told) the highest point of Snowdon is called the eagle's nest. That bird is certainly no stranger to this island, as the Scots, and the people of Cumberland, Westmoreland, &c. can testify: it even has built its nest in the Peak of Derbyshire.—See Willoughby's Ornithol. published by Ray.