Here measur'd laws and philosophic ease The blue-ey'd myriads from the Baltic coast. Unmanly thought! what seasons can control, What fancied zone can circumscribe the soul, Spite of her frail companion, dauntless goes Another touch, another temper take, Suspends th' inferior laws that rule our clay : Not but the human fabric from the birth They guard with spirit, what by strength they gain'd? (As lawless force from confidence will grow) What wonder, in the sultry climes, that spread If with advent'rous oar and ready sail, [The following couplet, which was intended to have been introduced in the poem on the Alliance of Education and Government, is much too beautiful to be lost. MASON. When love could teach a monarch to be wise, STANZAS TO MR. BENTLEY. Mr. Bentley had made a set of designs for Mr. Gray's Poems, particularly a head-piece to the Long Story. The original drawings are in the library at Strawberry Hill. IN silent gaze the tuneful choir among, See, in their course, each transitory thought The tardy rhymes that us'd to linger on, To censure cold, and negligent of fame, In swifter measures animated run, And catch a lustre from his genuine flame. Ah! could they catch his strength, his easy grace, The energy of Pope they might efface, But not to one in this benighted age That burns in Shakspeare's or in Milton's page, As when conspiring in the diamond's blaze, And dazzle with a luxury of light. Enough for me, if to some feeling breast |