The Progress of Poesy
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Pindaric Ode Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake,And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.From Helicon's harmonious springsA thousand rills their mazy progress take:The laughing flowers that round them blowDrink life and fragrance as they flow.Now the rich stream of Music winds along,Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;Now rolling down the steep amain,Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the roar. Oh! Sov'reign of the willing soul,Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,Enchanting shell! the sullen CaresAnd frantic Passions hear thy soft control.On Thracia's hills the Lord of WarHas curbed the fury of his car,And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command.Perching on the sceptred handOf Jove, thy magic lulls the feathered kingWith ruffled plumes and flagging wing:Quenched in dark clouds of slumber lieThe terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye. Thee the voice, the dance, obey,Tempered to thy warbled lay.O'er Idalia's velvet-greenThe rosy-crowned Loves are seenOn Cytherea's day,With antic Sport, and blue-eyed Pleasures,Frisking light in frolic measures;Now pursuing, now retreating,Now in circling troops they meet:To brisk notes in cadence beatingGlance their many-twinkling feet.Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare:Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay.With arms sublime that float upon the airIn gliding state she wins her easy way:O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom moveThe 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!The fond complaint, my song, disprove,And justify the laws of Jove.Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse?Night and all her sickly dews,Her sceptres wan, and birds of boding cry,He gives to range the dreary sky;Till down the eastern cliffs afarHyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring shafts of war. In climes beyond the solar road,Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,The Muse has broke the twilight gloomTo cheer the shivering Native's dull abode.And oft, beneath the od'rous shadeOf Chili's boundless forests laid,She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,In loose numbers wildly sweet,Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves.Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,Glory pursue, and gen'rous Shame,Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame. Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,Isles, that crown th' Aegean deep,Fields that cool Ilissus laves,Or where Maeander's amber wavesIn lingering lab'rinths creep,How do your tuneful echoes languish,Mute, but to the voice of anguish!Where each old poetic mountainInspiration breathed around;Ev'ry shade and hallowed fountainMurmured 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.When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,They sought, Oh 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 strayed,To him the mighty mother did unveilHer awful face: the dauntless childStretched forth his little arms, and smiled."This pencil take (she said), whose colours clearRichly paint the vernal year: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 sublimeUpon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,The secrets of th' Abyss to spy.He passed the flaming bounds of place and time:The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze,Where Angels tremble while they gaze,He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,Closed his eyes in endless night.Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous carWide o'er the fields of glory bearTwo coursers of ethereal race,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 urnThoughts that breathe, and words that burn.But ah! 'tis heard no more—Oh! Lyre divine, what daring SpiritWakes thee now? Though he inheritNor the pride, nor ample pinion,That the Theban eagle bear,Sailing with supreme dominionThrough the azure deep of air:Yet oft before his infant eyes would runSuch forms as glitter in the Muse's ray,With orient hues, unborrowed of the Sun:Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant wayBeyond the limits of a vulgar fate,Beneath the Good how far—but far above the Great.
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