Still on thy solemn steps attend:
Warm Charity, the general friend,

With Justice, to herself severe,
And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head,

Dread Goddess, lay thy chast’ning hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen) With thund'ring voice, and threatning mien,

With screaming Horror's funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty:

Thy form benign, oh Goddess! wear,

Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there

To soften, not to wound my heart.
The gen'rous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love, and to forgive,

Exact my own defects to scan,
What others are to feel, and know myself a man.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A PINDARIC ODE.

Φωγαντα συνετοίσιν' ές
Δε το σαν ερμηνέων
Xarilet

PINDAR, Olymp. II.

[This highly-finished Ode describes the power and influence as well as

the progress of Poetry.]

I. 1. · AWAKE, Æolian lyre, awake (h), And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. From Helicon’s harmonious springs

A thousand rills their mazy progress take:

(h) Awałe, Æolian lyre, awake.
Awake, my glory: awake, lute and harp.

David's Psalms.
Pindar styles his own poetry, with its musical accompaniments,
Alonis moanin Aloñíces xocdai, Aloríown trout ajar, Æolian song,
Æolian strings, the breath of the Æolian flute.

The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are here united. The various sources of poetry, which give life and lustre to all it touches, are here described; as well in its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with all the pomp of diction, and luxuriant harmony of numbers; as in its inore rapid and irresistible course, when swoln and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous passions.

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,
Thro’ verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign:
Now rolling down the steep amain,
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour:
Therocks and nodding groves re-bellow to the roar.

I. 2.
Oh! Sovereign of the willing soul (i),
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares

And frantic Passions hear thy soft controul.
On Thracia’s hills the Lord of War
Has curb’d the fury of his car,
And drop'd his thirsty lance at thy command.
Perching on the sceptred hand (k)

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.

I. 3.
Thee the voice, the dance, obey (l),
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-ey'd 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 (m).

(1) Thee the voice, the dance obey. Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body. (m) Glance their many-twinkling feet. Μαρμαρυδας θηείτο ποδιων θαύμαζε δε θυμώ.

Homer, Od..

Slow melting strains their Queen's approach de

clare [5]: Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay [6]. 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 (n).

[5] Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare. This, and the five flowing lines which follow, are (as Mr. Mason observes) sweetly introduced by the short and unequal measures that precede them: the whole stanza is indeed a master-piece of rhythm, and charms the ear by its well-varied cadence, as much as the imagery which it contains ravishes the fancy. “There is" (says Mr. Gray, in one of his manuscript papers) “ a tout ensemble of sound, as well as of “ sense, in poetical composition always necessary to its perfection. “ What is gone before still dwells upon the ear, and insensibly harmo“ nizes with the present line, as in that succession of fleeting notes " which is called Melody.” Nothing can better exemplify the truth of this fine observation than his own poetry.

This line seems to have been imitated from Dryden's Fable of the Flower and the Leaf:

“ For wheresoe'er she turnd her face they bow'd.”
(n) The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of Love.

Δάμπει δ' επί πορφυρέησι
Tiapainot cūs špwre.

'Phrynicus apud Athenæum.