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| THY various works, imperial queen, we see, | |
| How bright their forms! how deck’d with pomp by thee! | |
| Thy wond’rous acts in beauteous order stand, | |
| And all attest how potent is thine hand. | |
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| From Helicon’s refulgent heights attend, | 5 |
| Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend: | |
| To tell her glories with a faithful tongue, | |
| Ye blooming graces, triumph in my song. | |
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| Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies, | |
| Till some lov’d object strikes her wand’ring eyes, | 10 |
| Whose silken fetters all the senses bind, | |
| And soft captivity involves the mind. | |
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| Imagination! who can sing thy force? | |
| Or who describe the swiftness of thy course? | |
| Soaring through air to find the bright abode, | 15 |
| Th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God, | |
| We on thy pinions can surpass the wind, | |
| And leave the rolling universe behind: | |
| From star to star the mental optics rove, | |
| Measure the skies, and range the realms above. | 20 |
| There in one view we grasp the mighty whole, | |
| Or with new worlds amaze th’ unbounded soul. | |
| |
| Though Winter frowns to Fancy’s raptur’d eyes | |
| The fields may flourish, and gay scenes arise; | |
| The frozen deeps may break their iron bands, | 25 |
| And bid their waters murmur o’er the sands. | |
| Fair Flora may resume her fragrant reign, | |
| And with her flow’ry riches deck the plain; | |
| Sylvanus may diffuse his honours round, | |
| And all the forest may with leaves be crown’d: | 30 |
| Show’rs may descend, and dews their gems disclose, | |
| And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose. | |
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| Such is thy pow’r, nor are thine orders vain, | |
| O thou the leader of the mental train: | |
| In full perfection all thy works are wrought, | 35 |
| And thine the sceptre o’er the realms of thought. | |
| Before thy throne the subject-passions bow, | |
| Of subject-passions sov’reign ruler Thou; | |
| At thy command joy rushes on the heart, | |
| And through the glowing veins the spirits dart. | 40 |
| |
| Fancy might now her silken pinions try | |
| To rise from earth, and sweep th’ expanse on high; | |
| From Tithon’s bed now might Aurora rise, | |
| Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies, | |
| While a pure stream of light o’erflows the skies. | 45 |
| The monarch of the day I might behold, | |
| And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold, | |
| But I reluctant leave the pleasing views, | |
| Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse; | |
| Winter austere forbids me to aspire, | 50 |
| And northern tempests damp the rising fire; | |
| They chill the tides of Fancy’s flowing sea, | |
| Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay. | |
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