Though taste, though genius, bless To some divine excess, Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole; May court, may charm, our eye; Thou, only thou canst raise the meeting soul! Of these let others ask, To aid some mighty task, I only seek to find thy temperate vale; To maids and shepherds round, And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale. ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER. S once,-if, not with light regard, AS I read aright that gifted bard, -Him whose school above the rest His loveliest elfin queen has blest;One, only one, unrival'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, Florimel. See Spenser Leg. 4th. It left unblest her loath'd dishonour'd side; Her baffled hand with vain endeavour, Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name, To gird their best 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, And plac'd her on his sapphire throne; All the shadowy tribes of mind, In braided dance, their murmurs join'd, High on some cliff, to heaven up pil'd, Where, tangled round the jealous steep, Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock, I view that oak, the fancied glades among, From many a cloud that dropp'd ethereal dew, Nigh spher'd in heaven, its native strains could hear; On which that ancient trump he reach'd was hung: Thither oft, his glory greeting, From Waller's myrtle shades retreating, With many a vow from Hope's aspiring tongue, Of all the sons of soul, was known; And Heaven, and Fancy, kindred powers,, Or curtain'd close such scene from ev'ry future view. ODE, WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1746. HOW sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By fairy hands their knell is rung; ODE TO MERCY. STROPHE. THOU, who sit'st a smiling bride And hid'st in wreaths of flow'rs his bloodless sword! By godlike chiefs alone beheld, Oft with thy bosom bare art found, Pleading for him the youth who sinks to ground: See, Mercy, see, with pure and loaded hands, Before thy shrine my country's genius stands, And decks thy altar still, tho' pierc'd with many a wound! ANTISTROPHE. When he whom ev'n our joys provoke, And rush'd in wrath to make our isle his prey; O'ertook him on his blasted road, And stop'd his wheels, and look'd his rage away. I see recoil his sable steeds, That bore him swift to savage deeds, To thee we build a roseate bow'r, Thou, thou shalt rule our queen, and share our monarch's throne! ODE TO LIBERTY. STROPHE. WHO shall awake the Spartan fife, At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, |