Vainly the cygnet spread her downy plume,
The vine gush nectar, and the virgin bloom.
But swift to thee, alive, and warm,

Devolves each tributary charm:

See modest Nature bring her simple stores,
Luxuriant Art exhaust her plastic powers;
While every flower in Fancy's clime,
Each gem of old heroic Time,

Cull'd by the hand of the industrious Muse,
Around thy shrine their blended beams diffuse.

II.

Hail, MEMORY! hail. Behold, I lead

To that high shrine the sacred Maid:
Thy daughter she, the empress of the lyre,
The first, the fairest of Aonia's quire.

She comes, and lo, thy realms expand:
She takes her delegated stand

Full in the midst, and o'er thy numerous train
Displays the awful wonders of her reign.

There throned supreme in native state
If Sirius flame with fainting heat,

She calls; ideal groves their shade extend,
The cool gale breathes, the silent showers descend.
Or, if bleak winter, frowning round,

Disrobe the trees, and chill the ground,
She, mild magician, waves her potent wand,
And ready summers wake at her command.

See, visionary suns arise,

Through silver clouds, and azure skies;

See sportive zephyrs fan the crisped streams;

Thro' shadowy brakes light glance the sparkling beams: While, near the secret moss-grown cave,

That stands beside the crystal wave,

Sweet Echo, rising from her rocky bed,

Mimics the feather'd chorus o'er her head.

III.

Rise, hallow'd MILTON! rise, and say,

How, at thy gloomy close of day;

How, when "depress'd by age, beset with wrongs:"
When "fall'n on evil days and evil tongues;"
When darkness, brooding on thy sight,

Exiled the sov'reign lamp of light;

Say, what could then one cheering hope diffuse?
What friends were thine, save Mem'ry and the Muse?
Hence the rich spoils, thy studious youth

Caught from the stores of ancient truth:

Hence all thy classic wand'rings could explore,
When rapture led thee to the Latian shore;
Each scene, that Tiber's bank supplied;

Each grace, that play'd on Arno's side;
The tepid gales, through Tuscan glades that fly;
The blue serene, that spreads Hesperia's sky;

Were still thy own: thy ample mind

Each charm received, retain'd, combined.

And thence "the nightly visitant," that came
To touch thy bosom with her sacred flame,

Recall'd the long-lost beams of grace,

That whilom shot from Nature's face,

When GOD, in Eden, o'er her youthful breast

Spread with his own right hand perfection's gorgeous vest.

ODE II.

TO A WATER-NYMPH.*

YE green hair'd Nymphs, whom Pan's decrees

Have given to guard this solemn wood,†

To speed the shooting scions into trees,

And call the roseate blossom from the bud,
Attend. But chief, thou Naiad, wont to lead
This fluid crystal sparkling as it flows,

Whither, ah, whither art thou fled?
What shade is conscious to thy woes?
Ah, 'tis yon poplars' awful gloom :

Poetic eyes can pierce the scene;

Can see thy drooping head, thy withering bloom;
See grief diffused o'er all thy languid mien.
Well may'st thou wear misfortune's fainting air
Well rend those flow'ry honours from thy brow;

NOTES.

* This Ode was written in the year 1747, and published in the first volume of Mr. Dodsley's Miscellany. It is here revised throughout, and concluded according to the Author's original idea.

† A seat near ** finely situated, with a great command of water; but disposed in a very false taste.

Devolve that length of careless hair;

And give thine azure veil to flow
Loose to the wind: for, oh, thy pain

The pitying Muse can well relate:

That pitying Muse shall breathe her tend'rest strain,

To teach the echoes thy disastrous fate.

'Twas, where yon beeches' crowding branches closed, What time the dog-star's flames intensely burn,

In gentle indolence composed,

Reclined upon thy trickling urn,

Slumb'ring thou lay'st, all free from fears;
No friendly dream foretold thine harm;
When sudden, see, the tyrant Art appears,
To snatch the liquid treasures from thine arm.
Art, Gothic Art, has seized thy darling vase:
That vase which silver-slipper'd Thetis gave,

For some soft story told with grace,
Among the associates of the wave;
When, in sequester'd coral vales,
While worlds of waters roll'd above,
The circling sea-nymphs told alternate tales
Of fabled changes, and of slighted love.
Ah! loss too justly mourn'd: for now the fiend
Has on yon shell-wrought terrace pois'd it high;
And thence he bids its streams descend,
With torturing regularity.

From step to step, with sullen sound,

The forc'd cascades indignant leap;