Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

MISCELLANEOUS POETICAL EXTRACTS.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.-GRAY.

A PINDARIC ODE.

I.

AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake,

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings!
From Helicon's harmonious springs,

A thousand rills their mazy progress take;
The laughing flowers that round them blow
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of music winds along,

Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,

Through verdant vales and Ceres' golden reign:

Now rushing down the steep amain,

Headlong, impetuous see it pour;

The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar!

Oh! sovereign of the willing soul, Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,

Enchanting shell! the sullen cares

And frantic passions hear thy soft control. On Thracia's hills the lord of war

Has curb'd the fury of his car,

And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command:
Perching on the scepter'd hand

Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber, lie
The terror of his beak, and lightning of his eye.

Thee the voice, the dance obey,
Temper'd to thy warbled lay;
O'er Idalia's velvet green

The rosy-crowned loves are seen
On Cytherea's day,

With antic sports and blue-ey'd pleasures
Frisking light in frolic measures:
Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meet;
To brisk notes, in cadence beating,
Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Slow, melting strains their Queen's approach declare ;
Where'er she turns the graces homage pay,

With arts sublime, that float upon the air;

In gliding state she wins her easy way:

O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom, move

The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of Love.

II.

Man's feeble race what ills await,—

Labor, and Penury, the racks of Pain,

Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,

And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!

The fond complaint, my song, disprove,

And justify the laws of Jove.

Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse?

Night, and all her sickly dews,

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,

He gives to range the dreary sky:

Till down the eastern cliffs afar,

Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war.

In climes beyond the solar road,

Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, The Muse has broke the twilight gloom,

To cheer the natives' dull abode.

And oft, beneath the odorous shade

Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,

In loose numbers wildly sweet,

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,

Glory pursues, and generous shame,

Th' unconquerable mind, and Freedom's holy flame.

Woods that wave o'er Delphi's steep,
Isles that crown the Ægean deep,
Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,
Or where Mæander's amber waves
In lingering labyrinths creep,
How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute, but to the voice of Anguish?
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breath'd around,
Every 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 Latin 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.

III.

Far from the sun and summer-gale

In thy green lap was Nature's darling* laid,

[blocks in formation]

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 smil'd.

"This pencil take," she said, "whose colors 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 ecstacy,
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,

Their necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding pace.†

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!

Bright-eyed fancy hov'ring o'er,

Scatters from her pictur'd urn,

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn!

But ah! 'tis heard no more

Oh lyre divine! what daring spirit

Wakes thee now! though he inherit

Nor the pride, nor ample pinion
That the Theban eagle bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion.
Through the azure deep of air;

* Milton.

† Expressive of the majestic sound of Dryden's verse.

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.

THANATOPSIS.-BRYANT.

To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language. For his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Irdo his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,——
Go forth unto the open sky, and list

To Nature's teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice-

Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course. Nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, and be resolv'd to earth again;

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up

« ZurückWeiter »