Attend. But chief, thou Naiad, wont to lead
This fluid crystal sparkling as it flows,
Whither, ah, whither art thou fled?
What shade is conscious to thy woes?
Ah, 'tis yon poplars' awful gloom:
Poetic eyes can pierce the scene;

Can see thy drooping head, thy withering bloom;
See grief diffused o'er all thy languid mien.
Well mayst thou wear misfortune's fainting air,
Well rend those flowery honours from thy brow;
Devolve that length of careless hair;
And give thine azure veil to flow
Loose to the wind: for, oh, thy pain
The pitying Muse can well relate:

That pitying Muse shall breathe her tenderest To teach the echoes thy disastrous fate. [strain, 'Twas where yon beeches' crowding branches closed,

What time the dogstar's flames intensely burn, In gentle indolence composed,

Reclined upon thy trickling urn,

Slumbering thou lay'st, all free from fears; No friendly dream foretold thine harm; When sudden, see, the tyrant Art appears, To snatch the liquid treasures from thine arm. Art, Gothic Art has seized thy darling vase: That vase which silver-slipper'd Thetis gave, For some soft story told with grace, Among the' associates of the wave; When, in sequester'd coral vales,

While worlds of waters roll'd above, The circling seanymphs told alternate tales Of fabled changes, and of slighted love.

D 2

Ah! loss too justly mourn'd: for now the fiend Has on yon shell-wrought terrace poised it high; And thence he bids its streams descend, With torturing regularity.

From step to step, with sullen sound, The forced cascades indignant leap; Now sinking fill the bason's measured round; There in a dull stagnation doom'd to sleep. Where now the vocal pebbles' gurgling song? The rill slow dripping from its rocky spring? What free meander winds along,

Or curls when Zephyr waves his wing?
Alas, these glories are no more:
Fortune, oh, give me to redeem

The ravish'd vase; oh, give me to restore
Its ancient honours to this hapless stream.
Then, Nymph, again, with all their wonted ease,
Thy wanton waters, volatile and free,

Shall wildly warble, as they please,
Their soft, loquacious harmony.

Where Thou and Nature bid them rove,
There will I gently aid their way;
Whether to darken in the shadowy grove,
Or in the mead reflect the dancing ray.
For thee too, Goddess, o'er that hallow'd spot,
Where first thy fount of crystal bubbles bright,
These hands shall arch a rustic grot,
Impervious to the garish light.
I'll not demand of Ocean's pride

To bring his coral spoils from far:

Nor will I delve yon yawning mountain's side, For latent minerals rough, or polish'd spar: But antique roots, with ivy dark o'ergrown, Steep'd in the bosom of thy chilly lake,

Thy touch shall turn to living stone;
And these the simple roof shall deck.
Yet grant one melancholy boon:

Grant that, at evening's sober hour,
Led by the lustre of the rising moon,
My step may frequent tread thy pebbled floor.
There, if perchance I wake the lovelorn theme,
In melting accents querulously slow,

Kind Naiad, let thy pitying stream
With wailing notes accordant flow:
So shalt thou sooth this heaving heart,
That mourns a faithful virgin lost;
So shall thy murmurs, and my sighs impart
Some share of pensive pleasure to her ghost.

ODE III.

ON

LEAVING ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRidge.

1746.

GRANTA, farewell! thy time-ennobled shade
No more must glimmer o'er my musing head,
Where waking dreams, of Fancy born,
Around me floated eve and morn.
I go-Yet, mindful of the charms I leave,
Memory shall oft their pleasing portrait give;
Shall teach the' ideal stream to flow
Like gentle Camus, soft and slow;
Recall each antique spire, each cloister's gloom,
And bid this vernal noon of life rebloom.
E'en if old age, in northern clime,
Shower on my head the snows of time,

There still shall Gratitude her tribute pay
To him who first approved my infant lay';
And fair to Recollection's eyes

Shall Powell's various virtues rise.
See the bright train around their favourite throng:
See Judgment lead meek Diffidence along,
Impartial Reason following slow,
Disdain at Error's shrine to bow,
And Science, free from hypothetic pride,
Proceed where sage Experience deigns to guide.
Such were the guests from Jove that came,
Genius of Greece! to fix thy fame:

These waked the bold Socratic thought, and Its simple beauties in the splendid vest [dress'd Of Plato's diction: These were seen

Full oft on academic green;

Full oft where clear Ilissus warbling stream'd; Bright o'er each master of the mind they beam'd, Inspiring that preceptive art

Which, while it charm'd, refined the heart, And with spontaneous ease, not pedant toil, Bade Fancy's roses bloom in Reason's soil. The fane of Science then was hung

With wreaths that on Parnassus sprung; And in that fane to his encircling youth The Sage dispensed the' ambrosial food of Truth', And mingled in the social bowl Friendship, the nectar of the soul.

1 It was by the advice of Dr. Powell, the author's tutor at St. John's College, that Musæus was published.

2 Alluding to the EYMПOZIA, particularly Zenophon's respecting the moral songs of the Greeks.-See Dr. Hurd's note on the 219th verse of Horace's Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 173, 4th edit.

Meanwhile accordant to the Dorian lyre,
The moral Muses join'd the vocal choir,
And Freedom dancing to the sound

Moved in chaste Order's graceful round. Thus, Athens, were thy freeborn offspring train'd To act each patriot part thy laws ordain'd; Thus, void of magisterial awe,

Each youth in his instructor saw

Those manners mild, unknown in modern school,
Which form'd him by example more than rule;
And felt that, varying but in name,
The Friend and Master were the same.

ODE IV.

ON EXPECTING TO RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE,

1780.1.

I. 1.

WHILE Commerce, riding on thy refluent tide,
Impetuous Humber! wafts her stores
From Belgian or Norwegian shores,
And spreads her countless sails from side to side;
While, from yon crowded strand,

Thy genuine sons the pinnace light unmoor,
Break the white surge with many a sparkling

oar,

To pilot the rich freight o'er each insidious sand;

In the interval between the dates of the preceding Ode and of this, the author had been unexpectedly nominated by the Fellows of Pembroke Hall to a vacant Fellowship. See Memoirs of Mr. Gray, vol. iii. p. 70, edit. 1778.