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

The Progress of Poesy.

Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,

Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart. †

The Bard.

Weave the warp, and weave the woof,

The winding-sheet of Edward's race ; Give ample room, and verge enough,

The characters of hell to trace.

Ibid.

Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,

While proudly rising o'er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,
Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm.

Ibid.

Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,

* These lines refer to Dryden, forming a portion of a somewhat lengthened panegyric. + “ As dear to me as are the ruddy drops

That visit my sad heart."

Shakspere. Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Scene 1. I The Tower of London, in which Henry Sixth and the two young princes are believed to have been privately murdered.

eyes, neartt

The B

ayr blows

ealm

- helm

ef

DS

Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell ;
'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.

Oriental Eclogues. Eclogue I.

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung.

Ode. The Passions,

With woful measures wan Despair,

Low, sullen sounds his grief beguild ; A solemn, strange, and mingled air ;

'Twas sad by fits, by starts was wild.

Ibid.

Through glades and glooms the mingled measure 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.

Ibid.

Love fram'd with Mirth a gay

fantastic 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 odours from his dewy wings.

Ode. The Passions.

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest !

*

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung.

Lines written in the year 1746.

Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part ;
Nature in him was almost lost in art.
Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer on his Edition

of Shakspere.