| |
| AWAKE, Aeolian lyre, awake, | |
| And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. | |
| From Helicon’s harmonious springs | |
| 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, | |
| Through verdant vales, and Ceres’ golden reign; | |
| Now rolling down the steep amain | 10 |
| Headlong, impetuous, see it pour: | |
| The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the roar. | |
| |
| 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 control. | |
| On Thracia’s hills the Lord of War | |
| Has curb’d the fury of his car | |
| And dropt 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. | |
| |
| Thee the voice, the dance, obey | 25 |
| Temper’d to thy warbled lay. | |
| O’er Idalia’s velvet-green | |
| The rosy-crownéd Loves are seen | |
| On Cytherea’s day, | |
| With antic Sport, 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. | |
| |
| Man’s feeble race what ills await! | |
| Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, | |
| Disease, and Sorrow’s weeping train, | |
| And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! | 45 |
| The fond complaint, 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. | |
| |
| 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 feather-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 |
| |
| Woods, that wave o’er Delphi’s steep, | |
| Isles, that crown th’ Aegean deep, | |
| Fields that cool Ilissus laves, | |
| Or where Maeander’s amber waves | |
| In lingering lab’rinths 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. | |
| |
| 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 | |
| Stretch’d 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. | |
| Nor second He, that rode sublime | 95 |
| Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy | |
| The secrets of the 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. | |
| |
| 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— | |
| Oh! 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. | |
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