ODE TO SIMPLICITY. O THOU, by Nature taught To breathe her genuine thought, In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong; Who first, on mountains wild, In Fancy, loveliest child, Thy babe, or Pleasure's, nurs'd the powers of song! Thou, who, with hermit heart, Disdain'st the wealth of art, And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall; But com❜st a decent maid, In attic robe array'd, O chaste, unboastful Nymph, to thee I call! By all the honey'd store By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear; In evening musings slow, Sooth'd sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear: By old Cephisus deep, Who spread his wavy sweep, In warbled wanderings, round thy green retreat; On whose enamell'd side, When holy Freedom died, No equal haunt allur'd thy future feet. O sister meek of Truth, To my admiring youth, Thy sober aid and native charms infuse! Though Beauty cull'd the wreath, Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues. While Rome could none esteem But virtue's patriot theme, The andwv, or nightingale, for which Sophocles seems to have entertained a peculiar fondness. You lov'd her hills, and led her laureat band: But staid to sing alone To one distinguish'd throne; And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land. No more, in hall or bow'r, 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. Though taste, though genius, bless To some divine excess, Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole; What each, what all supply, 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; 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, -Him whose school above the rest -Lo! to each other nymph, in turn, applied, Her baffled hand with vain endeavour, Florimel. See Spenser Leg. 4th. 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; |