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THE

TRANSLATOR'S PROLOGUE.

POET AND FRIEND.

V. I-12.

POET.

NAY, spare your censures, nor condemn the lays:
The town-the town may yet accord its praise.-
Enlightened Warton may approve the style;

And classic Gifford nod the head and smile.
F. Have I not told you o'er and o'er again,
Not to indulge your rhiming scribbling vein ?
Besides, your age: consider, sir, your age,
And learn to temper your poetic rage.

P. As time speeds on, and years revolve, my friend,
I grow too idle, or too old to mend.

While yet a youth, my pure descriptive lays

The learn'd could suffer, and the partial praise.

Her brilliant tints Imagination threw,
O'er the wild scenes my artless pencil drew;
Soft numbers fell unstudied from my tongue,
Fancy was pleased, and Judgment yet was young:
Gay Hope then smoothed the wrinkled brow of Time,
Love waved his torch, and youth was in its prime.
But soon the tempest gather'd o'er my head,
Health lost her bloom, and faithless Pleasure fled;
Friendship retired, and left me to decay,

And Love desponding threw his torch away.
'Twas then, when sickness and when sorrow drew
Their sable curtain on my clouded view;
When lost to hope, I wander'd, wan and pale,
O'er Cintra's rocks, or sought Vaucluse's vale;
That left in distant climes to droop and pine,
The Muse's converse and her art were mine:
Nor less beloved has been the tuneful lay,
Since fortune smiled, and fate restored my day.
F. O idle talk! your early song, 'tis true,
Might please the rustic and unletter'd crew:
But now the strain has lost its wonted fire,
His art the Poet, and its tones the lyre.

P. And yet for me the Muses still have charms,
Their light yet guides me, and their fire yet warms.

For me the silvan world has beauties still,
The shaded valley, or the sun-clad hill.
Nor yet unwelcome does the hour draw nigh,
Which leaves me free from busy crowds to fly;
The hour which warns me to renew the oil,
The poet's pleasure, and the student's toil.
Nor undelighted does my mind recall
Its infant joys in yonder Gothic hall;

Where still the legendary tale goes round,

Of charms and spells, of treasures lost and found,
Of fearful goblins, and malicious sprites,
Enchanted damsels, and enamour'd knights:
Or led by fancy back to ancient times,
To fairer regions, and to milder climes,
I love through all the Muse's haunts to rove,
On Hybla's hill, or in th' Aonian grove.
Or seek those fabled scenes, by poets sung,
Where his famed lyre the Thracian artist strung;
Where Phoebus, sighing o'er the shepherd's tomb,
Bade the sweet flower of Hyacinthus bloom;
Where with young Zephyr Flora loved to play,
And hid her blushes in the lap of May;

Where Dian nightly woo'd a blooming boy,
And, veil'd by darkness, was no longer coy;

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Where erst, when winter's stormy reign began,
A purple fountain changed Adonis ran,
Her annual tears desponding Venus shed,
And the wave redden'd, as the hunter bled.

F. Cease, cease to dream. The golden age is o'er,
And mortals know those happy times no more,
When Pan with Phoebus piped upon the plains,
When kings were shepherds, and when gods were swains.
Plain common sense, thank Heaven, has banish'd long
The age of fable, and the reign of song.

No cities now dispute the sacred earth,

Which haply gave some favour'd poet birth;
Affairs of empire no Augustus quits

To judge with critics, or unbend with wits:

The world's great master might sweet verse admire,
Might love the Muse, and listen to the lyre;
Might seek the festive board, where Horace sung,
And learn what accents fell from Maro's tongue.
Our Sovereign Lord, avenging Europe's wrongs,
Turns not his thoughts from politics to songs.
Alas, poor bards! fled are those golden days,
When monarchs' ears were tickled by your praise.
Be wise, my friend, -the useless lyre resign,
Forget Parnassus, and forsake the Nine.

Your Persius too, austere, though beardless sage,
Will ne'er be borne in this enlighten'd age.

His moral rules, his stiff ungracious air,

Will fright the young, and never please the fair.
No tender tale of grief, or love, he tells,
Reports no scandal, even of Roman belles;
But ever grave, decisive, and severe,

Scorns Folly's smile, nor asks for Pity's tear.

P. Unused to courts, nor sprung from flattery's womb, The Muse beloved by Liberty and Rome,

Satire, stern maid, no adulation knows,

No weak respect for empty grandeur shows;
But bold as free, brands purple Vice with shame,
And blots from honour's page the harlot's name;
At Folly scoffs, in robes of ermine dress'd,
And galls proud Arrogance by Power caress'd.
Not such her lays, when on her native plains
She sung rude carols to Etrurian swains.
No art, no grace, no polish, then she knew,
But coarsely colour'd, and with harshness drew.
Then Momus ever in her train advanced,
And Mirth and Revelry before her danced;
Triumphant Bacchus bore aloft the vine,
And old Silenus sung the joys of wine.

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