feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where’er the Goddess roves,
Glory pursue and generous
Shame,
Th’ unconquerable Mind, and Freedom’s holy flame.
Woods, that wave o’er Delphi’s steep,
Isles, that crown th’ Ægean deep,
Fields, that cool Ilissus
laves,
Or where Mæander’s amber waves
In lingering lab’rinths creep,
How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute,
but to the voice of anguish?
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breathed around:
Ev’ry 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 tyrant Power,
And coward Vice, that revels
in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,
They sought, O 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 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 eyes in endless night.
Behold,
where Dryden’s less presumptuous car,
Wide o’er the fields of glory bear
Two 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
urn
Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
But ah! ’tis heard no more—
O Lyre divine! what daring
Spirit
Wakes thee now? Tho’ he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban eagle bear
Sailing
with supreme dominion
Thro’ 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.
’TWAS on a lofty vase’s side,
Where China’s gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest
of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.
Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her
paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purr’d applause.
Still
had she gazed; but ’midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream:
Their scaly
armour’s Tyrian hue
Thro’ richest purple to the view
Betray’d a golden gleam.
The hapless Nymph with
wonder saw:
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretch’d in vain to reach the
prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What Cat’s averse to fish?
Presumptuous Maid! with looks
intent
Again she stretch’d, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled.)
The
slipp’ry verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.
Eight times emerging from the flood
She mew’d to ev’ry wat’ry god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No
Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr’d:
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A Fav’rite has no friend!
From hence, ye Beauties undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved,
And be with
caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters,
gold.
|
