Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Thomas Gray. 1716–1771455. The Progress of Poesy A PINDARIC ODE
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, | 5 |
Drink life and fragrance as they flow. | |
Now the rich stream of music winds along | |
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong, | |
Thro’ verdant vales, and Ceres’ golden reign: | |
Now rolling down the steep amain, | 10 |
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour; | |
The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar. | |
O Sovereign of the willing soul, | |
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, | |
Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares | 15 |
And frantic Passions hear thy soft controul. | |
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 sceptred hand | 20 |
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 lightnings of his eye. | |
Thee the voice, the dance, obey, | 25 |
Temper’d to thy warbled lay. | |
O’er Idalia’s velvet-green | |
The rosy-crownéd Loves are seen | |
On Cytherea’s day | |
With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures, | 30 |
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. | 35 |
Slow melting strains their Queen’s approach declare: | |
Where’er she turns the Graces homage pay. | |
With arms sublime, that float upon the air, | |
In gliding state she wins her easy way: | |
O’er her warm cheek and rising bosom move | 40 |
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love. | |
Man’s feeble race what ills await, | |
Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, | |
Disease, and Sorrow’s weeping train, | |
And Death, sad refuge from the storms of fate! | 45 |
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 sceptres wan, and birds of boding cry, | 50 |
He gives to range the dreary sky: | |
Till down the eastern cliffs afar | |
Hyperion’s march they spy, and glitt’ring shafts of war. | |
In climes beyond the solar road, | |
Where shaggy forms o’er ice-built mountains roam, | 55 |
The Muse has broke the twilight gloom | |
To cheer the shiv’ring native’s dull abode, | |
And oft, beneath the od’rous shade | |
Of Chili’s boundless forests laid, | |
She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat | 60 |
In loose numbers wildly sweet | |
Their 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. | 65 |
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, | 70 |
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 | 75 |
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. | 80 |
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, | 85 |
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: | 90 |
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 | 95 |
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, | 100 |
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, | 105 |
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. | 110 |
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 | 115 |
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: | 120 |
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. |