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A PINDARIC ODE
AWAKE Æolian lyre, awake, | |
| And give to rapture all thy trembling strings, | |
| From Helicon’s harmonious springs 1 | |
| A thousand rills their mazy progress take: | |
| The laughing flowers, that round them blow, | 5 |
| Drink life and fragrance as they flow. | |
| Now the rich stream of music winds along | |
| Deep, majestic, smooth and strong, | |
| Thro’ verdant vales, and Ceres’ golden reign: | |
| Now rolling down the steep amain, | 10 |
| Headlong, impetuous, see it pour; | |
| The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar. | |
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| O Sovereign of the willing soul, | |
| Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, | |
| Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares, | 15 |
| And frantic Passions hear thy soft controul. | |
| On Thracia’s hills the Lord of War | |
| Has curb’d the fury of his car, | |
| And dropp’d his thirsty lance at thy command. | |
| Perching on the sceptred hand | 20 |
| Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather’d king | |
| With ruffled plumes and flagging wing: | |
| Quench’d in dark clouds of slumber lie | |
| The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye. | |
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| Thee the voice, the dance, obey, | 25 |
| Temper’d to thy warbled lay. | |
| O’er Idalia’s velvet-green 2 | |
| The rosy-crownèd Loves are seen | |
| On Cytherea’s 3 day | |
| With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures, | 30 |
| Frisking light in frolic measures; | |
| Now pursuing, now retreating, | |
| Now in circling troops they meet: | |
| To brisk notes in cadence beating, | |
| Glance their many-twinkling feet. | 35 |
| Slow melting strains their Queen’s approach declare: | |
| Where’er she turns the Graces homage pay. | |
| With arms sublime, that float upon the air, | |
| In gliding state she wins her easy way: | |
| O’er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move | 40 |
| The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love. | |
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| Man’s feeble race what ills await, | |
| Labour, and Penury, and racks of Pain, | |
| Disease, and Sorrow’s weeping train, | |
| And Death, sad refuge from the storms of fate! | 45 |
| The fond complaint, 4 my song, disprove, | |
| And justify the laws of Jove. | |
| Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? | |
| Night, and all her sickly dews, | |
| Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, | 50 |
| He gives to range the dreary sky: | |
| Till down the eastern cliffs afar | |
| Hyperion’s march they spy, and glittering shafts of war. | |
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| In climes beyond the solar road, | |
| Where shaggy forms o’er ice-built mountains roam, | 55 |
| The Muse has broke the twilight gloom | |
| To cheer the shivering native’s dull abode, | |
| And oft, beneath the odorous shade | |
| Of Chili’s boundless forests laid, | |
| She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, | 60 |
| In loose numbers wildly sweet, | |
| Their feathered-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves. | |
| Her track, where’er the Goddess roves, | |
| Glory pursue, and generous Shame, | |
| Th’ unconquerable Mind, and Freedom’s holy flame. | 65 |
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| 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 labyrinths creep, | 70 |
| How do your tuneful echoes languish, | |
| Mute, but to the voice of anguish? | |
| Where each old poetic mountain | |
| Inspiration breathed around: | |
| Every shade and hallow’d fountain | 75 |
| 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. | 80 |
| When Latium had her lofty spirit lost, | |
| They sought, O Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast. | |
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| Far from the sun and summer gale, | |
| In thy green lap was Nature’s darling laid, | |
| What time, where lucid Avon stray’d, | 85 |
| To Him the mighty mother did unveil | |
| Her awful face: the dauntless child | |
| Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled. | |
| This pencil take (she said), whose colours clear | |
| Richly paint the vernal year: | 90 |
| 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. | |
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| Nor second He, that rode sublime | 95 |
| Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, | |
| 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, | 100 |
| He saw; but blasted with excess of light, | |
| Closed his eyes in endless night. | |
| Behold, where Dryden’s less presumptuous car, | |
| Wide o’er the fields of glory bear | |
| Two coursers of ethereal race, | 105 |
| With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace. | |
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| Hark, his hands the lyre explore! | |
| Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o’er | |
| Scatters from her pictured urn | |
| Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. | 110 |
| But ah! ’tis heard no more— | |
| O Lyre divine! what daring Spirit | |
| Wakes thee now? Tho’ he inherit | |
| Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, | |
| That the Theban eagle bear | 115 |
| Sailing with supreme dominion | |
| Thro’ 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: | 120 |
| 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. | |
