Poets, ancient and modern.
Demand; but who can count the stars of heaven; Who sing their influence on this lower world?
Behold, who yonder comes! in sober state,
Fair, mild, and strong, as is a vernal sun : 'Tis Phœbus' self, or else the Mantuan Swain ! Great HOMER too appears, of daring wing,
Parent of song! and equal by his side,
The British Muse; joined hand in hand they walk, 535 Darkling, full up the middle steep to fame..a Nor absent are those shades, whose skilful touch Pathetic drew the impassioned heart, and charmed Transported Athens with the moral scene:
Nor those who, tuneful, waked the enchanting lyre. 540 First of your kind! society divine!
Still visit thus my nights, for you reserved,
And mount my soaring soul to thoughts like yours. Silence, thou lonely power! the door be thine;
See on the hallowed hour that none intrude,
Save a few chosen friends, who sometimes deign To bless my humble roof, with sense refined, Learning digested well, exalted faith, Unstudied wit, and humour ever gay. Or from the Muses' hill will POPE descend, To raise the sacred hour, to bid it smile, And with the social spirit warm the heart :: For tho' not sweeter his own HoMER Sings,
Yet is his life the more endearing song.
Where art thou, HAMMOND? thou the darling pride,
The friend and lover of the tuneful throng!
Ah why, dear youth, in all the blooming prime
Of vernal genius, where disclosing fast
Each active worth, each manly virtue lay,
Why wert thou ravished from our hope so soon? What now avails that noble thirst of fame, Which stung thy fervent breast? that treasured store Of knowledge, early gained? that eager zeal To serve thy country, glowing in the band Of youthful Patriots, who sustain her name? What now, alas! that life-diffusing charm Of sprightly wit? that rapture for the Muse, That heart of friendship, and that soul of joy, Which bade with softest light thy virtues smile? Ah! only shewed, to check our fond pursuits, And teach our humbled hopes that life is vain!
Thus in some deep retirement would I pass
The winter-glooms, with friends of pliant soul, Or blithe, or solemn, as the theme inspired :
With them would search, if Nature's boundless frame Was called, late-rising from the void of night,
Or sprung eternal from the eternal Mind;
Its life, its laws, its progress, and its end.
Hence larger prospects of the beauteous whole
Would, gradual, open on our opening minds; And each diffusive harmony unite
In full perfection, to the astonished eye. Then would we try to scan the moral World,
Which, tho' to us it seems embroiled, moves on
In higher order; fitted, and impelled, By Wisdom's finest hand, and issuing all In general Good. The sage historic Muse Should next conduct us through the deeps of time. Shew us how empire grew, declined, and fell, In scattered states; what makes the nations smile, Improves their soil, and gives them double suns ;
And why they pine beneath the brightest skies, In Nature's richest lap. As thus we talked, Our hearts would burn within us, would inhale That portion of divinity, that ray
Of purest heaven, which lights the public soul Of patriots, and of heroes. But if doomed, In powerless humble fortune, to repress These ardent risings of the kindling soul; Then, even superior to ambition, we
Would learn the private virtues; how to glide
Through shades and plains, along the smoothest streamOf rural life; or, snatched away by hope,
Through the dim spaces of futurity, With earnest eye anticipate those scenes
Of happiness and wonder; where the mind,
In endless growth and infinite ascent,
Rises from state to state, and world to world.
But when with these the serious thought is foiled,
We, shifting for relief, would play the shapes
Of frolic fancy; and incessant form
Those rapid pictures, that assembled train Of fleet ideas, never joined before, Whence lively Wit excites to gay surprise;. Or folly-painting Humour, grave himself, Calls Laughter forth, deep-shaking every perve Meantime the village rouses up the fire;
While well attested, and is well believed, Heard solemn, goes the goblin-story round; Till superstitious horror creeps o'er all. Or, frequent in the sounding hall, they wake The rural gambol. Rustic mirth goes round ; The simple joke that takes the shepherd's heart, Easily pleased; the long loud laugh, sincere
The kiss, snatched hasty from the side-long maid On purpose guardless, or pretending sleep: The leap, the slap, the haul; and, shook to notes Of native music, the respondent dance. Thus jocund fleets with them the winter-night.
The city swarms intense. The public haunt, Full of each theme, and warm with mixt discourse, Hums indistinct. The sons of riot flow Down the loose stream of false enchanted joy To swift destruction. On the rankled soul The gaming fury falls; and in one gulph Of total ruin, honour, virtue, peace, Friends, familics, and fortune, headlong sink. Up springs the dance along the lighted dome, Mixt, and evolved, a thousand sprightly ways. The glittering court effuses every pomp ;
The circle deepens; beamed from gaudy robes,
Tapers, and sparkling gems, and radiant eyes, A soft effulgence o'er the palace waves:
While, a gay insect in his summer-shine,
The fop, light-fluttering, spreads his mealy wings. 645 Dread o'er the scene, the ghost of HAMLET stalks ; OTHELLO rages; poor MONIMIA mourns ;
And BELVIDERA pours her soul in love.
Terror alarms the breast; the comely tear
Steals o'er the cheek: or else the Comic Muse
Holds to the world a picture of itself,
And raises sly the fair impartial laugh.
Sometimes she lifts her strain, and paints the scenes Of beauteous life; whate'er can deck mankind, Or charm the heart, in generous *BEVIL shewed. 655
A character in the Conscious Lovers, written by Sir Richard Steele.
O Thou, whose wisdom, solid, yet refined, Whose patriot virtues, and consummate skill To touch the finer springs that move the world, Joined to whate'er the Graces can bestow, And all Apollo's animating fire,
Give thee, with pleasing dignity, to shine At once the guardian, ornament, and joy, Of polished life; permit the Rural Muse, O CHESTERFIELD, to grace with thee her song! Ere to the shades again she humbly flies, Indulge her fond ambition in thy train, (For every Muse has in thy train a place) To mark thy various full-accomplished mind To mark that spirit, which, with British scorn, Rejects the allurements of corrupted power; That elegant politeness, which excels,
Even in the judgment of presumtuous France, The boasted manners of her shining court;
That wit, the vivid energy of sense,
The truth of Nature, which, with Attic point,,
And kind well-tempered satire, smoothly keen,
Steals through the soul, and without pain corrects. Or, rising thence with yet a brighter flame, O let me hail thee on some glorious day, When to the listening senate, ardent, croud BRITANNIA'S Sons to hear her pleaded cause. Then dressed by thee more amiably fair, Truth the soft robe of mild persuasion wears: Thou to assenting reason givest again
Her own enlightened thoughts; called from the heart, The obedient passions on thy voice attend;
And even reluctant party feels awhile
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