I. 3.

Thee the voice, the dance obey,
Temper'd to thy warbled lay.
O'er Idalia's velvet green

The rofy-crowned loves are feen

On Cytherea's day,

With antic Sports, and blue-ey'd Pleasures,
Frisking light in frolic measures;

Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meet;
To brifk notes in cadence beating,
Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Slow melting ftrains their Queen's approach declare:
Where'er the turns, the Graces homage pay,

With arms fublime, that float upon the air,

In gliding state she wins her easy way :

O'er her warm cheek, and rifing bofom, move

The bloom of young defire, and purple light of love.

II. I.

Man's feeble race what ills await!

Labour, and penury, the racks of pain,

Disease, and forrow's weeping train;

And death, fad refuge from the storms of fate!
The fond complaint, my fong, difprove,

And juftify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse?

Night, and all her fickly dews,

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,

He gives to range the dreary fky:

Till down the eastern cliffs afar

Hyperion's march they spy,and glitt’ring shafts of way.

II. 2.

In climes beyond the folar road,

Where fhaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
The Mufe has broke the twilight gloom,

To cheer the fhiv'ring native's dull abode.
And oft, beneath the od'rous fhade
Of Chili's boundless forefts laid,

She deigns to hear the favage youth repeat,
La loofe numbers, wildly fweet,

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,

Glory purfues, and gen'rous thame,

Th' unconquerable mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

II. 3.

Woods, that wav'd o'er Delphi's steep;

Ifles, that crown'd th' Egean deep;

Fields, that cool Iliffus laves;

Or where Mæander's amber waves
In ling'ring lab'rinths creep;
How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute, but to the voice of anguish!
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breath'd around;
Ev'ry fhade and hollow'd fountain
Murmur'd deep a folemn found :
Till the fad Nine, in Grecce's evil hour,
Left their Parnaffus for the Latian plains,
Alike they fcorn the pomp of tyrant Pow'r,
And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty fpirit loft,

They fought, O Albion! next thy fea-encircled afte

H

III. 1.

Far from the fun and fummer-gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon ftray'd,
To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: the dauntless child

Stretch'd forth his little arms, and fmil'd.
This pencil take (fhe faid) whofe colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year:

Thine too thefe golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of joy;

Of horror that, and thrilling fears,

Or

ope the facred fource of fympathetic tears.
III. 2.

Nor fecond he, that rode fublime

Upon the feraph-wing of ecftacy,

The fecrets of th' abyfs to fpy.

He pafs'd the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the fapphire blaze,

Where angels tremble while they gaze,

He faw; but blafted with excefs of light,

Clos'd his eyes in endless night.

Behold, where Dryden's lefs prefumptuous car

Wide o'er the fields of glory bear

Two courfers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long refounding pace.

III. 3.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!

Fright-ey'd Fancy, lov'ring o'er,

Scatters Tom her picur'd urn

Thor ghts that breathe, and words that burn.

But ah, 'tis heard no more!

Oh, lyre divine! what daring fpirit
Wakes thee now? though he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban eagle bare,
Eailing with fupreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air;

Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms as glitter in the Mufe's ray,
With orient hues, unborrow'd of the fun :
Yet hall he mount, and keep his diftant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

Beneath the Good how far-but far above the Great!

SMOLLETT.

ODE,

TO INDEPENDENCE,

STROPHE.

THY fpirit, Independence, let me fhare!

Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye,
Thy fteps I follow, with my bofom bare,
Nor heed the form that how Is along the sky.
Deep in the frozen regions of the north,
A Goddess, violated, brought thee forth,
Immortal Liberty, whofe look fublime

Hath bleach'd the tyrant's cheek in ev'ry varying clime;

What time the iron-hearted Gaul,

With frantic Superftition for his guide,

Arm'd with the dagger and the pall,
The fons of Woden to the field defy'd:

The ruthlefs hag, by Wefer's flood,

In Heaven's name urg'd th' infernal blow;
And red the ftream began to flow:

The vanquish'd were baptiz'd with blood.*

ANTISTROPHE,

The Saxon prince in horror fled
From altars ftain'd with human gore;
And Liberty his routed legions led
In fafety to the bleak Norwegian fhore,
There in a cave afleep fhe lay,
Lull'd by the hoarfe refounding main;
When a bold favage pafs'd that way,
Impell'd by Destiny, his name Difdain.
Of ample front the portly chief appear'd;
The hunted bear fupply'd a fhaggy veft;
The drifted fnow hung on his yellow beard;
And his broad fhoulders brav'd the furious blast.
He ftopt; he gaz'd; his bofom glow'd,

And deeply felt the impreffion of her charms:
He feiz'd th' advantage Fate allow'd,

And ftraight comprefs'd her in his vigorous arm.

STROPHE,

The Curlieu fcream'd; the Tritons blew Their fhells to celebrate the ravish'd rite

Old Time exulted as he flew;

And Independence faw the light.

* Charlemagne obliged 4000 Saxon prisoners to embrace the Christian religion, and immediately after they were bap tized ordered their throats to be cut. Their prince Vitikind ed for shelter to Gotrick king of Denmark.