174

My lyre I tune, my voice I raise,
But with my numbers mix my sighs;
And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise,
I fix my soul on Cloë's eyes.

Fair Cloë blush'd; Euphelia frown'd;

I sung, and gazed; I play'd, and trembled;
And Venus to the Loves around

Remark'd how ill we all dissembled.

Matthew Prior

LOVE'S SECRET

Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears:-
Ah! she did depart.

Soon after she was gone from me

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly:

He took her with a sigh.

William Blake

175*

When lovely woman stoops to folly

And finds too late that men betray,

What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?

176

The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover
And wring his bosom, is-to die.

Oliver Goldsmith

Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye blume sae fair!
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu' o' care!

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird

That sings upon the bough;

Thou minds me o' the happy days

When my fause Luve was true.

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;

For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o' my fate.

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon
To see the woodbine twine,
And ilka bird sang o' its love;
And sae did I o' mine.

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Frae aff its thorny tree;

And my fause luver staw the rose,

But left the thorn wi' me.

Robert Burns

177

THE PROGRESS OF POESY

A Pindaric Ode

Awake, Aeolian 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,

Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;

Now rolling down the steep amain

Headlong, impetuous, see it pour:

The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow 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 controul.
On Thracia's hills the Lord of War

Has curb'd the fury of his car

And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command.
Perching on the sceptred 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 lightnings 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 Sport, and blue-eyed 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 arms 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.

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!The fond complaint, my song, disprove,

And justify the laws of Jove:

Say, has he given in vain the heavenly 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 shivering native's 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-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.

Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,
Isles, that crown th' Aegean deep,
Fields that cool Ilissus laves,
Or where Maeander'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 breathed 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 Latian 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, oh 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,

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;

Thine, too, these golden keys, immortal Boy!

This can unlock the gates of joy;