Though taste, though genius, bless, To some divine excess, Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole; What each, what all supply, May court, may charm, our eye; Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul! Of these let others ask, To aid some mighty task, I only seek to find thy temperate vale; Where oft my reed might sound To maids and shepherds round, And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale. 'Tis not the enfeebled thrill, or warbled shake, The heart can strengthen, or the soul awake! But where the force of energy is found, When the sense rises on the wings of sound; When reason, with the charms of music twined, Through the enraptured ear informs the mind; Bids generous love or soft compassion glow, And forms a tuneful Paradise below! ODE TO THE BRAVE. How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blessed! She there shall dress a sweeter sod By fairy hands their knell is rung; And Freedom shall awhile repair, THE PASSIONS. AN ODE FOR MUSIC. WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young, While yet in early Greece she sung, Filled with fury, rapt, inspired, And, as they oft had heard apart ON TRUE AND FALSE TASTE IN Would prove his own expressive Revenge impatient rose; He threw his blood-stained sword, in thunder, down; And with a withering look, And, ever and anon, he beat 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 differing themes the veering song was mixed; And now it courted Love, now raving called on Hate. With eyes upraised, as one inspired, 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 an holy calm diffusing, Love of Peace, and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away. But O! how altered was its spright lier 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 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 leapt up, and seized his beechen spear. Last came Joy's ecstatic trial: 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's 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 fan tastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. O Music! sphere-descended maid, Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid! Why, goddess! why, to us denied, Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside? As, in that loved Athenian bower, You learned an all-commanding Thy mimic soul, O Nymph endeared, Had more of strength, diviner rage, Than all which charms this laggard age; E'en all at once together found, ODE TO EVENING. IF aught of oaten stop or pastoral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Like thy own brawling springs, O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede ethereal wove Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing; Or where the beetle winds As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum: Now teach me, maid composed, Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit; As, musing slow, I hail For when thy folding-star, arising shows His paly circlet,-at his warning lamp The fragrant Hours, and elves Who slept in buds the day, And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still, The pensive Pleasures sweet, Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene; Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells, Whose walls more awful nod Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut, That, from the mountain's side, And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires; And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all Thy dewy fingers draw |