The Poetical Works of Robert Lloyd :: :: University of Virginia Library

Perch'd on the dubious height, She loves to ride,
Upon a weather-cock, astride.
Each blast that blows, around she goes,
While nodding o'er her crest,
Emblem of her magic pow'r,
The light Cameleon stands confest,
Changing it's hues a thousand times an hour.
And in a vest is she array'd,
Of many a dancing moon-beam made,
Nor zoneless is her waist:
But fair and beautiful, I ween,
As the cestos-cinctur'd Queen,
Is with the Rainbow's shadowy girdle brac'd.

2.

She bids pursue the fav' rite road
Of lofty cloud-capt Ode.
Meantime each Bard, with eager speed,
Vaults on the Pegasean Steed:

123

Yet not that Pegasus, of yore
Which th' illustrious Pindar bore,
But one of nobler breed.
High blood and youth his lusty veins inspire.
From Tottipontimoy He came,
Who knows not, Tottipontimoy, thy name?
The bloody-shoulder'd Arab was his Sire.
His White-nose. He on fam'd Doncastria's plains
Resign'd his fated breath:
In vain for life the struggling courser strains.
Ah! who can run the race with death?
The tyrant's speed, or man or steed,
Strives all in vain to fly.
He leads the chace, he wins the race,
We stumble, fall, and die.

3.

Third from Whitenose springs
Pegasus with eagle wings:
Light o'er the plain, as dancing cork,
With many a bound he beats the ground,

124

While all the Turf with acclamation rings.
He won Northampton, Lincoln, Oxford, York:
He too Newmarket won.
There Granta's Son
Seiz'd on the Steed;
And thence him led, (fo fate decreed)
To where old Cam, renown'd in poet's song,
With his dark and inky waves,
Either bank in silence laves,
Winding slow his sluggish streams along.

The Author is either mistaken in this place, or has else indulged himself in a very unwarrantable poetical licence. Whitenose was not the Sire, but a Son of the Godolphin Arabian. See my Calendar. Heber.