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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,

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,
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.

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O D E.

On the Spring.

O! where the rosy-bosom'd hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,

Disclose the long expecting flowers
And wake the purple year,
The attic warbler pours her throat
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring,
While, whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader, browner shade,

Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,

Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclin'd in rustic state)

How vain the ardor of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud!
How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care,
The panting herds repose,

Yet hark! how thro' the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!

The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honey'd spring,

And float amid the liquid noon;
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some shew their gaily gilded trim,
Quick-glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye,
Such is the race of man,
And they that creep and they that fly
Shall end where they began.

Alike the busy and the gay

But flutter thro' life's little day,

In Fortune's varying colours drest! Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply,

Poor Moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!

Thy joys no glitt'ring female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,

No painted plumage to display: On hasty wings thy youth is flown, Thy sun is set, thy spring is goneWe frolic while 'tis May.

OD E.

On the Death of a favorite Cat, drowned in a Tub of

'TWAS

Gold Fishes.

on a lofty vase's side,

Where China's gayest art had dy'd

The azure flow'rs that blow,

Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclin'd,
Gaz'd on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declar'd;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,

Her coat that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and em'rald eyes,
She saw, and purr'd applause.

Still had she gaz'd, but, 'midst the tide,
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream;

Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Thro' richest purple, to the view
Betray'd a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first, and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,

She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize!
What female heart can gold despise :
What Cat's averse to fish?

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

I. 2.

On a rock, whose haughty brow

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

With haggard eye 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, sing Cambria's fatal day,
To high-born Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lay.

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 eagle 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 weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.'

II. 1.

"Weave the warp and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward's race;
Give ample room, and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.

Mark the year, and mark the night

When Severn shall re-echo with affright

The shrieks of death thro' Berkley's roofs that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king!

She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
From thee be born who o'er thy country hangs
The scourge of heaven. What terrors round him
wait!

Amazement in his van, with Flight combin'd,
And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind.

II. 2.

Mighty victor, mighty lord,

Low on his fun'ral couch he lies!

No pitying heart, no eye, afford

A tear to grace his obsequies!

Is the sable warrior fled?

Thy son is gone; he rests among the dead.

The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born, Gone to salute the rising morn:

Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly riding o'er the azure realm,

In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,

Youth on the prow and pleasure at the helm, Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That hush'd in grim repose expects his ev'ning prey,

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