Let others court thy transient smile,
But come to grace thy western isle,
By warlike Honour led;
And, while around her ports rejoice,
While all her sons adore thy choice,
With him for ever wed!
Farewell, for clearer ken designed,
The dim-discovered tracts of mind;
Truths which, from action's paths retired,
My silent search in vain required!
No more my sail that deep explores;
No more I search those magic shores;
What regions part the world of soul;
Or whence thy streams, Opinion, roll:
If e'er I round such fairy field
Some power impart the spear and shield
At which the wizard Passions fly;
By which the giant Follies die!
Farewell the porch, whose roof is seen
Arched with the' enlivening olive's green:
Where Science, pranked in tissued vest,
By Reason, Pride, and Fancy dressed,
Comes like a bride, so trim arrayed,
To wed with Doubt in Plato's shade.
Youth of the quick uncheated sight,
Thy walks, Observance, more invite!
O thou, who lov'st that ampler range
Where life's wide prospects round thee change,
And, with her mingled sons allied,
Throwest the prattling page aside,
To me, in converse sweet, impart
To read in Man the native heart;
To learn where Science sure is found,
From Nature as she lives around;
And, gazing oft her mirror true,
By turns each shifting image view!
Till meddling Art's officious lore
Reverse the lessons taught before;
Alluring from a safer rule,
To dream in her enchanted school:
Thou, Heaven, whate'er of great we boast,
Hast blessed this social Science most.
Retiring hence to thoughtful cell,
As Fancy breathes her potent spell,
Not vain she finds the charmful task,
In pageant quaint, in motley mask;
Behold before her musing eyes
The countless Manners round her rise:
While, ever-varying as they pass,
To some Contempt applies her glass;
With these the white-robed maids combine!
And those the laughing Satyrs join!
But who is he whom now she views,
In robe of wild contending hues?
Thou, by the Passions nursed, I greet
The comic sock that binds thy feet!
O Humour, thou whose name is known
To Britain's favoured isle alone:
Me, too, amidst thy band admit ;
There, where the young-eyed healthful Wit,
(Whose jewels in his crispèd hair
Are placed each other's beams to share,
Whom no delights from thee divide)
In laughter loosed, attends thy side!
By old Miletus1, who so long
Has ceased his love-inwoven song;
By all you taught the Tuscan maids,
In changed Italia's modern shades;
By him, whose knight's distinguished name,
Refined a nation's lust of fame2;
Whose tales even now, with echoes sweet,
Castalia's Moorish hills repeat:
Or him3, whom Seine's blue nymphs deplore
In watchet weeds on Gallia's shore;
1 An allusion to Milesian tales; some of the earliest romances.
2 Cervantes' "Don Quixote."
3 Le Sage; author of "Gil Blas."
4 A kind of pale blue colour.
Who drew the sad Sicilian maid,
By virtues in her sire betrayed.
O Nature boon, from whom proceed
Each forceful thought, each prompted deed;
If but from thee I hope to feel,
On all my heart imprint thy seal!
Let some retreating Cynic1 find
Those oft-turned scrolls I leave behind;
The sports and I this hour agree
To rove thy scene-full world with thee!
When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possessed beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined;
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for madness ruled the hour)
Would prove his own expressive power.
First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid,
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
Even at the sound himself had made.
1 The Cynic philosophers were so mankind. The word signifies dogcalled from the snarling sarcasms like."
they uttered against the follies of
Next Anger rushed; his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.
With woeful measures wan Despair-
Low, sullen sounds his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air;
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all the song;
And when her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair.
And longer had she sung-but, with a frown,
Revenge impatient rose :
He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down;
And, with a withering look
The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!
And, ever and anon, he beat
The doubling drum with furious heat;
And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected Pity, at his side,
Her soul-subduing voice applied,
Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,
While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.
Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed:
Sad proof of thy distressful state!
Of different themes the veering song was mixed;
And now it courted Love, now, raving, called on Hate.
With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sat retired:
And from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
And dashing soft from rocks around
Bubbling runnels joined the sound;
Through glades and glooms the mingled measures stole,
Or o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,
Round a holy calm diffusing,
Love of peace, and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away.
But O! how altered was its sprightlier tone,
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulder flung,
Her buskins gemmed with morning dew;
Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung. The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known.
The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen, Satyrs and Sylvan Boys were seen
Peeping from forth their alleys green;
Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,
And Sport leaped up, and seized his beechen spear.
Last came Joy's ecstatic trial;
He, with viny crown advancing,
First to the lively pipe his hand addressed:
But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best :
They would have thought who heard the strain,
They saw, in Tempe's1 vale, her native maids,
Amidst the festal sounding shades,
To some unwearied minstrel dancing,
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round:
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
And he, amidst his frolio play,
As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.
O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid,
1 The vale of Tempe, in Thessaly, celebrated for its beauty.
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