Now sinking fill the bason's measur'd round;
There in a dull stagnation doom'd to sleep.
Where now the vocal pebbles' gurgling song?
The rill slow-dripping from its rocky spring?
What free meander winds along,

Or curls when Zephyr waves his wing?
Alas, these glories are no more :
Fortune, oh, give me to redeem

The ravish'd vase; oh, give me to restore
Its ancient honours to this hapless stream.
Then, Nymph, again, with all their wonted ease,
Thy wanton waters, volatile and free,

Shall wildly warble, as they please,

Their soft, loquacious harmony.

Where Thou and Nature bid them rove,

There will I gently aid their way; Whether to darken in the shadowy grove, Or, in the mead, reflect the dancing ray. For thee too, Goddess, o'er that hallow'd spot, Where first thy fount of chrystal bubbles bright, These hands shall arch a rustic grot,

Impervious to the garish light.

I'll not demand of Ocean's pride

To bring his coral spoils from far :

Nor will I delve yon yawning mountain's side, For latent minerals rough, or polish'd spar : But antique roots, with ivy dark o'ergrown, Steep'd in the bosom of thy chilly lake,

Thy touch shall turn to living stone;
And these the simple roof shall deck.
Yet grant one melancholy boon:

Grant that, at evening's sober hour,
Led by the lustre of the rising moon,
My step may frequent tread thy pebbled floor.
There, if perchance I wake the love lorn theme,
In melting accents querulously slow,

Kind Naiad, let thy pitying stream
With wailing notes accordant flow:
So shalt thou sooth this heaving heart,
That mourns a faithful virgin lost;
So shall thy murmurs, and my sighs impart
Some share of pensive pleasure to her ghost.

ODE III.

ON LEAVING ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,

1746.

GRANTA farewell! thy time-ennobled shade
No more must glimmer o'er my musing head,
Where waking dreams, of Fancy born,
Around me floated eve and morn.

I go-Yet, mindful of the charms I leave,
Mem'ry shall oft their pleasing portrait give;
Shall teach th'ideal stream to flow

Like gentle Camus, soft and slow;
Recall each antique spire, each cloister's gloom,
And bid this vernal noon of life re-bloom.

Ev'n if old age, in northern clime,

Shower on my head the snows of time, There still shall Gratitude her tribute pay To him who first approv'd my infant lay ;* And fair to Recollection's eyes

Shall POWELL's various virtues rise.

NOTE.

* It was by the advice of Dr. POWELL, the author's tutor at St. John's College, that MUSEUS was published. This Ode was for the first time printed from a corrected copy 1797.

See the bright train around their fav'rite throng:
See Judgment lead meek Diffidence along,
Impartial Reason following slow,
Disdain at Error's shrine to bow,
And Science, free from hypothetic pride,
Proceed where sage Experience deigns to guide.
Such were the guests from Jove that came,
Genius of Greece! to fix thy fame:
These wak'd the bold Socratic thought, and drest
Its simple beauties in the splendid vest

Of Plato's diction: These were seen

Full oft on academic green;

Full oft where clear Ilissis warbling stream'd;
Bright o'er each master of the mind they beam'd,

Inspiring that preceptive art

Which, while it charm'd, refin'd the heart,

And with spontaneous ease, not pedant toil,
Bade Fancy's roses bloom in Reason's soil.
The fane of Science then was hung
With wreathes that on Parnassus sprung;
And in that fane to his encircling youth

The Sage dispens'd th'ambrosial food of Truth,*
And mingled in the social bowl
Friendship, the nectar of the soul.

NOTE.

* Alluding to the YMПOZIA, particularly Zenophon's re specting the moral songs of the Greeks.—See Dr. Hurd's note on the 219th verse of Horace's Art of Poetry, Vol. i. p. 173, 4th edit.

Meanwhile accordant to the Dorian lyre,
The moral Muses join'd the vocal choir,
And Freedom dancing to the sound

Mov'd in chaste Order's graceful round.
Thus, Athens, were thy freeborn offspring train'd
To act each patriot part by laws ordain'd;
Thus void of magisterial awe,

Each youth in his instructor saw

Those manners mild, unknown in modern school, Which form'd him by example more than rule; And felt that, varying but in name,

The Friend and Master were the same.