The Works of William Mason :: :: University of Virginia Library

ODE III. ON LEAVING ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 1746.

Granta farewell! thy time-ennobled shade
No more must glimmer o'er my musing head,
Where waking dreams, of Fancy born,
Around me floated eve and morn.
I go—Yet, mindful of the charms I leave,
Mem'ry shall oft their pleasing portrait give;
Shall teach th' ideal stream to flow
Like gentle Camus, soft and slow;
Recall each antique spire, each cloister's gloom,
And bid this vernal noon of life re-bloom.
Ev'n if old age, in northern clime,
Shower on my head the snows of time,
There still shall Gratitude her tribute pay
To him who first approv'd my infant lay;
And fair to Recollection's eyes
Shall Powell's various virtues rise.

See the bright train around their fav'rite throng:
See Judgment lead meek Diffidence along,
Impartial Reason following slow,
Disdain at Error's shrine to bow,
And Science, free from hypothetic pride,
Proceed where sage Experience deigns to guide.
Such were the guests from Jove that came,
Genius of Greece! to fix thy fame:
These wak'd the bold Socratic thought, and drest
Its simple beauties in the splendid vest
Of Plato's diction: These were seen
Full oft on academic green;
Full oft where clear Ilissus warbling stream'd;
Bright o'er each master of the mind they beam'd,
Inspiring that preceptive art
Which, while it charm'd, refin'd the heart,
And with spontaneous ease, not pedant toil,
Bade Fancy's roses bloom in Reason's soil.
The fane of Science then was hung
With wreathes that on Parnassus sprung;
And in that fane to his encircling youth
The Sage dispens'd th' ambrosial food of Truth,
And mingled in the social bowl
Friendship, the nectar of the soul.

Meanwhile accordant to the Dorian lyre,
The moral Muses join'd the vocal choir,
And Freedom dancing to the sound
Mov'd in chaste Order's graceful round.
Thus, Athens, were thy freeborn offspring train'd
To act each patriot part thy laws ordain'd;
Thus void of magisterial awe,
Each youth in his instructor saw
Those manners mild, unknown in modern school,
Which form'd him by example more than rule;
And felt that, varying but in name,
The Friend and Master were the same.

It was by the advice of Dr. Powell, the author's tutor at St. John's College, that Musæus was published. This Ode was for the first time printed from a corrected copy 1797.

Alluding to the ΣΨΜΠΟΣΙΑ, particularly Zenophon's respecting the moral songs of the Greeks. —See Dr. Hurd's note on the 219th verse of Horace's Art of Poetry, Vol. i. p. 173, 4th edit.