Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

What hand may now unfold the magic doors,
That veil the highborn muse from vulgar gaze?
Who crop, sweet Poesy, thy choicest stores,
And crown young Genius with immortal lays?
Peace to that favour'd bard! to him belong
The sweet ambrosial flower of ever-blooming song!

II

Ah! what is grandeur? What pride-crested power?
That daunt with dazzling blaze the wondering eye?
Why plucks the muse for them her gayest flower,
Why in immortal verse forbids to die?
Low lie the breast, that sighs for unearn'd fame!
Nor less the venal bard, that chaunts a tyrant's name!

III

Me, tho' the humblest of the tuneful choir,
Me, tho' with trembling hand I touch the string,
No blood-stain'd chief might tempt to wake the lyre,
No haughty despot might allure to sing;
Rather be mine to court the silent woods,
Mine with the rural song to charm the listening floods.

IV

Parent of arts, of science, and of song,
First-born of nature, pure ethereal mind,
Thine be the lay! for thee the tuneful throng
Sweet flowerets twine, and on thy chaplets bind;
Warm'd by thy glowing form, and radiant eye,
They catch the fire of song, and lift thee to the sky.

V

In nature's fostering lap lo! Shakspeare lies,
Thy Shakspeare; whose creative magic hand
Paints shadowy forms, and fancy-colour'd skies,
And all the wilder shapes of fairy-land:
He too, sweet minstrel, knew to touch the key,
Whence breath'd the hidden soul of purest harmony.

VI

On native hills, in wildest beauty gay,
The Cambrian swain shall wake the Druid song:
Full of thy thrilling power, shall sportful stray,
And charm with past'ral reed the rustic throng;
Still emulous of Alawn's peaceful days
Pour in his fair one's ear the love-inspiring lays.

VII

But need the sun in golden glory bright,
The less resplendent beams of meaner fires?
So genius shines with clear unborrowed light;
And virtue lives, when e'en the muse expires.
Then dare, illustrious sage, the threat'ning sea:
And Fame to distant lands shall wait on thee!
But Melancholy stays, and thinks, and weeps, with me.

Alawn, one of the most ancient British Bards. See an Ode to the British Muse, by the honest and well-informed Edward Williams, in Poems Lyric and Pastoral. There are, also, some Icelandic and Irish Odes, translated by Charles Wilson, a person, as I perceive by the Nordymra, and Walker's History of the Irish Bards, Sect ix. x. xi. well acquainted with the Icelandic and Irish languages, and poetry.