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Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,

Or where Mæander's amber waves
In lingering labyrinths creep,
How do your tuneful Echoes languish
Mute, but to the voice of anguish?
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breathed around:
Every shade and hallow'd fountain

Murmur'd 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 tyrantpower,

And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.

When Latium had her lofty spirit lost, They sought, oh Albion! next thy seaencircled coast.

III.

Far from the Sun and summer-gale, In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,

What time, where lucid Avon stray'd,

To him the mighty mother did unveil Her awful face: the dauntless child Stretch'd forth his little arms, and smiled.

"This pencil_take,” she said, “whose colours clear

Richly 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 sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
The secrets of th' abyss to spy.
He pass'd 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 eyer is endless night. Behold, where Dryden's less presump.

tuous car,

Wide o'er the field of Glory bear

Two coursers of ethereal race, With necks in thunder clothed, and longresounding pace.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er,
Scatters from her pictured urn
Thoughts that breathe, and words that
burn.

But ah! 'tis heard no more-
Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit
Wakes thee now? Though he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,

That the Theban eagle bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion

Through the azure deep of air: Yet oft before his infant eyes would

run

Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray

With orient hues, unborrow'd of the

Sun:

Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way

Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, Beneath the good how far!--but far above the great.

HYMN TO ADVERSITY. DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless pow'r, Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour The bad affright, afflict the best! Bound in thy adamantine chain, The proud are taught to taste of pain, And purple tyrants vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth Virtue, his darling child, design'd, To thee he gave the heav'nly birth, And bade thee form her infant mind. Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore: What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless
Joy,

And leave us leisure o be good.
Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer Friend, the flatt'ring Foe;
By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom in sable garb array'd, Immersed in rapt'rous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye, that loves the ground, Still on thy solemn steps attend: Warm Charity, the gen'ral friend, With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly pleasing

tear.

O, gently on thy suppliant's head, Dread Goddess lay they chast'ning hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Nor circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen) With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning mien,

With screaming Horrour's funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.

Thy form benign, O Goddess! wear, Thy milder influence impart, Thy philosophic train be there, To soften, not to wound my heart. The gen'rous spark extinct revive, Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact my own defects to scan, What others are, to feel, and know myself a man.

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT
OF ETON COLLEGE.

YE distant spires, ye antique tow'rs,
That crown the wat'ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;

And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,

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No sense have they of ills to come,

No care beyond to-day :

Yet see how all around them wait

The ministers of human fate,
And black Misfortune's baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murd'rous band,
Ah, tell them they are men!

These shall the fury passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind :
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim visaged comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,
That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defiled,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath

A grisly troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their queen;

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every lab'ring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow consuming Age.

To each his suff'rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,
Th'unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know then fate

Since Sorrow never comes too late,
And Happiness too swiftly flies;
Thought would destroy their Paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

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