CXXXVI For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove And when we meet a mutual heart Bid us sigh on from day to day, But busy, busy, still art thou, For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer, All other blessings I resign, Make but the dear Amanda mine. J. Thomson R CXXXVII The merchant, to secure his treasure, My softest verse, my darling lyre When Cloe noted her desire That I should sing, that I should play. My lyre I tune, my voice I raise, Fair Cloe blush'd: Euphelia frown'd : Remark'd how ill we all dissembled. M. Prior CXXXVIII When lovely woman stoops to folly The only art her guilt to cover, O. Goldsmith CXXXIX Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon 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 For sae I sat, and sae I sang, Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon And ilka bird sang o' its love; K Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, And my fause luver staw the rose, R. Burns CXL THE PROGRESS OF POESY A Pindaric Ode Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. A thousand rills their mazy progress take: Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign; The rocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the roar. O Sovereign of the willing soul, And frantic Passions hear thy soft control. And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command. Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king 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, 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 : In gliding state she wins her easy way: The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love. Man's feeble race what ills await! Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, 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 How do your tuneful echoes languish, Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains. 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 To him the mighty Mother did unveil Her awful face: the dauntless Child Thine, too. these golden keys, immortal Boy! Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears. Nor second He, that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy The secrets of the 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, 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 With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace. |