No more, in hall or bower,

The passions own thy power,

Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean :

For thou hast left her shrine,

Nor olive more, nor vine,

Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene.

Tho' taste, tho' genius, bless

To some divine excess,

Faint's the cold work till thou inspire the whole :

What each, what all supply,

May court, may charm our eye,

Thou! only thou can'st raise the meeting soul!

Of these let others ask,

To aid some mighty task,

I only seek to find thy temperate vale:

Where oft my reed might sound,

To maids and shepherds round.

And all thy sons, O Nature! learn my tale.

ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER.

As once, if not with light regard,

I read aright that gifted Bard,

(Him whose school above the rest

His loveliest Elfin queen has blest)
One, only one, unrivall'd fair *,

Might hope the magic girdle wear,

At solemn turney hung on high,

The wish of each love-darting eye.

Lo! to each other nymph in turn applied,

As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand,

Some chaste and angel-friend to virgin-fame,

With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band,

Florimel. See Spenfer, Leg. 4th.

It left unblest her loath'd dishonour'd side;

Happier hopeless fair, if never

Her baffled hand with vain endeavour

Had touch'd that fatal zone to her denied!

Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name,

To whom, prepar'd and bath'd in heaven,

The cest of amplest power is given,

To few the god-like gift assigns,

To gird their blest prophetic loins.

And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmix'd her flame.

The band as fairy legends say,

Was wove on that creating day,

When He, who call'd with thought to birth

Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,

And drest with springs, and forests tall,

And pour'd the main engirting all,

Long by the lov'd Enthusiast wooed

Himself in some diviner mood,

Retiring, sat with her alone,

And plac'd her on his sapphire throne,

The whiles, the vaulted shrine around,
Seraphic wires were heard to sound,

Now sublimest triumph swelling;

Now on love and mercy dwelling;

And she, from out the veiling cloud,

Breath'd her magic notes aloud:

And thou, thou rich-hair'd youth of morn,

And all thy subject life was born!

The dangerous passions kept aloof,

Far from the sainted growing woof:

But near it sat ecstatic Wonder,

Listening the deep applauding thunder: