ODE TO SIMPLICITY.

O THOU, by Nature taught

To breathe her genuine thought,

In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong;
Who first, on mountains wild,

In Fancy, loveliest child,

Thy babe, or Pleasure's, nurs'd the powers of song!

Thou, who, with hermit heart,

Disdain'st the wealth of art,

And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall ;

But com'st a decent maid,

In attic robe array'd,

O chaste, unboastful Nymph, to thee I call!

By all the honey'd store

On Hybla's thymy shore;

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By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear; 15

By her1 whose lovelorn woe,

In evening musings slow,

Sooth'd sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear:

The andav, or nightingale, for which Sophocles seems to have entertained a peculiar fondness.

By old Cephisus deep,

Who spread his wavy sweep,

In warbled wanderings, round thy green retreat;

On whose enamell'd side,

When holy Freedom died,

No equal haunt allur'd thy future feet.

O sister meek of Truth,

To my admiring youth,

Thy sober aid and native charms infuse!

The flowers that sweetest breathe,

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Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues.

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While Rome could none esteem

But virtue's patriot theme,

You lov'd her hills, and led her laureat band:
But staid to sing alone

To one distinguish'd throne;

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And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land.

Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene.

Though taste, though genius, bless

To some divine excess,

Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole; 45

What each, what all supply,

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May court, may charm, our eye;

Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul!

Of these let others ask,

To aid some mighty task,

I only seek to find thy temperate vale ;
Where oft my reed might sound

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To maids and shepherds round, And all thy sons, O Nature, learn

my tale.

ODE

ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER.

As once,-if, not with light regard,
I read aright that gifted bard,

-Him whose school above the rest
His loveliest elfin queen has blest ;-
One, only one, unrivall'd fair,
Might hope the magic girdle wear,
At solemn turney hung on high,
The wish of each love-darting eye;

-Lo! to each other nymph, in turn, applied,
As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand,
Some chaste and angel friend to virgin fame,

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With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band,

It left unblest her loath'd dishonour'd side;
Happier hopeless Fair, if never

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Her baffled hand with vain endeavour,
Had touch'd that fatal zone to her denied!
Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name,

To whom, prepar'd and bath'd in heaven,
The cest of amplest power is given :

To few the godlike gift assigns,

To gird their blest prophetic loins,

And

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gaze her visions wild, and feel unmix'd her flame!

k Florimel. See Spenser, Leg. 4th.

And pour'd the main engirting all,

Long by the lov'd enthusiast woo'd,
Himself in some diviner mood,
Retiring, sat with her alone,

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And plac'd her on his sapphire throne;
The whiles, the vaulted shrine around,

And thou, thou rich-hair'd youth of morn,

By whose the tarsel's eyes were made;
All the shadowy tribes of mind,
In braided dance, their murmurs join'd,
And all the bright uncounted powers
Who feed on heaven's ambrosial flowers.
-Where is the bard whose soul can now
Its high presuming hopes avow?

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