How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute but to the voice of Anguish!
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breath'd around,

Ev'ry 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 Pow'r
And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,

They sought, Oh Albion! next, thy sea encircled coast.

III. 1.

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 sinil'd.
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.

III. 2.

Nor second het that rode sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of ecstasy,
The secrets of th' abyss to spy,

He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:

Milton improved on them: but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose, on the French model, which has subsisted ever since.

The living throne, the sapphire-blaze*,
Where angels tremble while they gaze,
He saw, but blasted with excess of light,
Clos'd his eyes in endless night,

Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear

Two coursers of etherial race t,

With necks in thunder cloth'd‡ and long resounding

pace.

III. 3.

Hark! his hands the lyre explore!
Bright-ey'd 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; tho' he inherit
Nor the pride nor ample pinion
That the Theban eagle bear ¶,

For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. And above the firmament, that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire

stone

This was the appearance of the glory of the Lord.

Ezekiel, 1. 20, 25, 28. Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes.

Hast thou cloth'd his neck with thunder? Job.

Words that weep and tears that speak. Cowley.

We have had in our language no other odes of the sublime kind than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day; for Cowley, who had his merit, yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason indeed of late days, has touched the true chords, and, with a masterly hand, in some of his chorusses.... above all, in the last of Caractacus ;

Hark! heard ye not yon footstep dread? &c.

Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravers that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight regardless of their noise.

Sailing with supreme dominion

Thro' the azure deep of air,

Yet oft before his infant eyes would run

Such forms as glitter in the Muses' 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.

ODE VI.

THE BARD. Pindaric.

Advertisement.

The following Ode is founded on a Tradition current in Wales, that Edward I. when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into his hands to be put to death.

R

I. 1.

UIN seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait;
Tho' fann'd by conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state*.
'Helm nor hauberk's twisted mail,

Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant! shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears;
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride ‡
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side §
He wound with toilsome march his long array:

* Mocking the air with colours idly spread.

Shakesp. King John. The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail that sat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion.

The crested adder's pride.

Dryden's Indian Queen,

Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous track which the Welsh themselves caìì Cragian

Stout Gloster* stood aghast in speechless trance:
To arms! cry'd Mortimert, and couch'd his quiv'ring

lance.

I. 2.

On a rock, whose haughty brow

Frowas o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Rob'd in the sable garb of Woe,

With haggard eyes the poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair

Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air§.)
And with a master's hand and prophet's fire
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.

Hark how each giant oak and desert cave 'Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!

'O'er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave, Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;

Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,

To high-born Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lay.

eryri: it included all the high lands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the river Conway. R. Hygden, speaking of the Castle of Conway, built by King Edward I. says, Adortum amnis Conway ad clivum montis Erery; and Matthew of Westminster, [ad an. 1283] Apud Aberconway ad pedes montis Snowdonia fecit erigi castrum forte.

• Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward.

Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. They both were Lords Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and probably accompanied the king in this expe. dition.

The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel. There are two of these paintings, both believed original; one at Florence, the other at Paris.

?Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind.

Milton's Paradise Lost

I. 3.

'Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,

That hush'd the stormy main;

'Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:

Mountains! ye mourn in vain

Modred, whose magic song

• Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topp'd head 'On dreary Arvon's* shore they lie, ⚫ Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale;

Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail, The famish'd eaglet screams and passes by. 'Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart, 'Ye dy'd amidst your dying country's cries...... 'No more I weep. They do not sleep;

'On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,

I see them sit; they linger yet, 'Avengers of their native land;

With me in dreadful harmony they join,

And weaves with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.

II. 1.

"Weave the warp and weave the woof,

"The winding-sheet of Edward's race;

*The shores of Caernarvonshire, opposite to the isle of Anglesey.

+ Camden and others observe, that eagles used annually to build their aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some think) were named, by the Welsh, Craigian eryri, or the Crags of the Eagles. At this day (I am told) the highest point of Snowdon is called the Eagle's Nest. That bird is certainly no stranger to this island, as the Scots, and the people of Cumberland, Westmoreland, &c. can testify, it even has built its nest in the Peak of Derbyshire. [See Willoughby's Ornithol, published by Ray.]

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart....

?See the Norwegian Ode that follows.

Shakesp. Julius Casar.