140

For Ever, Fortune

CXXXVI

For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to Love,

And when we meet a mutual heart
Come in between, and bid us part ?

Bid us sigh on from day to day,
And wish and wish the soul away;
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the life of life is gone?

But busy, busy, still art thou,
To bind the loveless joyless vow,
The heart from pleasure to delude,
To join the gentle to the rude.

For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer,
And I absolve thy future care;

All other blessings I resign,

Make but the dear Amanda mine.

J. THOMSON

CXXXVII

The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrow'd name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure,
But Cloe is my real flame.

My softest verse, my darling lyre
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay-

When Cloe noted her desire

That I should sing, that I should play.

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 Cloe's eyes.

141

Ye Banks and Braes

Fair Cloe 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.

M. PRIOR

CXXXVIII

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?
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.

O. GOLDSMITH

CXXXIX

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.

142

The Progress of Poesy

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.

R. BURNS

CXL

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,

Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign;
Now rolling down the steep amain
Headlong, impetuous, see pour :

The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the roar.

O 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 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.

The Progress of Poesy

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.

143

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,

144

The Progress of Poesy

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 lab'rinths 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, 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,

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;

Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.