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With richest stores your glowing bosoms fraught,
Perception quick, and luxury of thought;
The high designs, that heave the lab'ring soul,
Panting for fame, impatient of control;
And fond enthusiastic thought, that feeds
On pictur'd tales of vast heroic deeds;
And quick affections, kindling into flame
At virtue's or their country's honour'd name;
And spirits light, to ev'ry joy in tune;
And friendship, ardent as a summer's noon;
And gen'rous scorn of vice's venal tribe;
And proud disdain of int'rest's sordid bribe;
And conscious honour's quick instinctive sense;
And smiles unforc'd; and easy confidence;
And vivid fancy; and clear simple truth;
And all the mental bloom of vernal youth.

How bright the scene to Fancy's eye appears,
Through the long perspective of distant years,
When this, this little group their country calls
From academic shades and learned halls,
To fix her laws, her spirit to sustain,
And light up glory through her wide domain!
Their various tastes in diff'rent arts display'd,
Like temper'd harmony of light and shade,
With friendly union in one mass shall blend,
And this adorn the state, and that defend.
These the sequester'd shade shali cheaply please,
With learned labour and inglorious ease;
While those, impell'd by some resistless force,
O'er seas and rocks shall urge their vent'rous course
Rich fruits, matur'd by glowing suns, behold,
And China's groves of vegetable gold;
From ev'ry land the various harvest spoil,
And bear the tribute to their native soil;
But tell each land (while every toil they share,
Firm to sustain, and resolute to dare)
MAN is the nobler growth our realms supply,
And SOULS are ripen'd in our northern sky.
Some pensive creep along the shelly shore,
Unfold the silky texture of a flow'r,

With sharpen'd eyes inspect a hornet's sting,,
And all the wonders of an insect's wing.
Some trace with curious search the hidden cause
Of Nature's changes, and her various laws;
Untwist her beauteous web, disrobe her charms,
And hunt her to her elemental forms;

Or

prove what hidden pow'rs in herbs are found,
To quench disease, and cool the burning wound;
With cordial drops the fainting head sustain,
Call back the flitting soul, and still the throbs of pain.
The patriot passion this shall strongly feel,
Ardent, and glowing with undaunted zeal;
With lips of fire shall plead his country's cause,
And vindicate the majesty of laws.

This, cloth'd with Britain's thunder, spread alarms
Through the wide earth, and shake the pole with arms.
That to the sounding lyre his deeds rehearse,
Enshrine his name in some immortal verse,

To long posterity his praise consign,
And pay a life of hardships by a line.
While others, consecrate to higher aims,

Whose hallow'd bosoms glow with purer flames,
Love in their hearts, persuasion on their tongue,
With words of peace shall charm the list'ning throng,
Draw the dread veil that wraps th' eternal throne,
And launch our souls into the bright unknown.

MRS. BARBAULD.

CHAP. XII.

ODE TO CONTENT.

O THOU, the Nymph with placid eye!
O seldom found, yet ever nigh!

Receive my temp❜rate vow:

Not all the storms, that shake the pole,
Can e'er disturb thy halcyon soul,

And smooth, unalter'd brow.

O come, in simplest vest array'd,
With all thy sober cheer display'd,
To bless my longing sight;
Thy mien compos'd, thy even pace,
Thy meek regard, thy matron grace,
And chaste subdu'd delight.

No more by varying passions beat,
O gently guide my pilgrim feet,
To find thy hermit cell;
Where in some pure and equal sky,
Beneath thy soft indulgent eye,
The modest virtues dwell.

Simplicity in Attic vest,

And Innocence with candid breast,
And clear undaunted eye,

And Hope, who points to distant years,
Fair op'ning through this vale of tears
A vista to the sky.

There Health, through whose calm bosom glide
The temp❜rate joys in even tide,

That rarely ebb or flow;
And Patience there, thy sister meek,
Presents her mild, unvarying cheek,
To meet the offer'd blow.

Her influence taught the Phrygian sage,
A tyrant master's wanton rage

With settled smiles to meet :
Inur'd to toil and bitter bread,
He bow'd his meek submitted head,
And kiss'd thy sainted feet.

But thou, O Nymph retir'd and coy!
In what brown hamlet dost thou joy
To tell thy tender tale?

The lowliest children of the ground,
Moss rose and vi'let blossom round,
And lily of the vale.

O say what soft propitious hour
I best may choose to hail thy pow'r,
And court thy gentle sway:
When Autumn, friendly to the muse,
Shall thy own modest tints diffuse,
And shed thy milder day?

When Eve, her dewy star beneath,
Thy balmy spirit loves to breathe,
And ev'ry storm is laid?

If such an hour was e'er thy choice,
Oft let me hear thy soothing voice
Low whisp'ring through the shade.

MRS. BARBAUld.

CHAP. XIII.

ODE TO FEAR.

THOU, to whom the world unknown
With all it's shad'wy shapes is shown;
Who seest appall'd th' unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between :
Ah Fear! ah frantic Fear!

I see, I see thee near.

I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye!
Like thee I start, like thee disorder'd fly;
For lo, what monsters in thy train appear!
Danger, whose limbs of giant mould
What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
Who stalks his round, a hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight storm,
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep :
And with him thousand phantoms join'd,
Who prompt to deeds accurs'd the mind:
And those, the fiends, who, near allied,
O'er Nature's wounds and wrecks preside;
While Vengeance in the lurid air
Lifts her red arm, expos'd and bare :

On whom that rav'ning brood of Fate,
Who lap the blood of Sorrow, wait;
Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see,
And look not madly wild, like thee?

Thou who such weary lengths hast pass'd,
Where wilt thou rest, mad Nymph, at last?
Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell,
Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell?
Or in some hollow'd seat,

'Gainst which the big waves beat,

Hear drowning seamen's cries in tempests brought,
Dark pow'r, with shudd'ring meek submitted Thought?
Be mine, to read the visions old,

Which thy awakʼning bards have told,
And, lest thou meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true;
Ne'er be I found, by thee o'eraw'd,
In that thrice hallow'd eve abroad,
When ghosts, as cottage-maids believe,
The pebbled beds permitted leave,
And goblins haunt, from fire, or fen,
Or mine, or flood, the walks of men!

O thou whose spirit most possess'd
The sacred seat of Shakspeare's breast!
By all that from thy prophet broke,
In thy divine emotions spoke!
Hither again thy fury deal,
Teach me but once like him to feel;
His cypress wreath my meed decree,
And I, O Fear! will dwell with thee.

COLLINS.

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